


Lumen Obscura

by Pink_Siamese



Series: Ultraviolence [3]
Category: Dexter (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: A Timely Phone Call, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Awkward Conversations, Awkward Tension, Beverly's Not Here For Anyone's Bullshit, Biting, Blow Jobs, Breaking and Entering, Case Fic, Casual Sex, Creepy Hannibal, Crime Scenes, Crossover Pairings, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Cunnilingus, Deb to the Rescue, Dream Sex, Emotional Manipulation, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fever Cuddles, Fever Dreams, Fingerfucking, Food Porn, Gen, Graphic Description, Graphic Description of Corpses, Gruesome Shit, Hallucinations, Hannibal is Hannibal, I'm so sorry Molly, Kittens, Lucid Dreaming, Masturbation, Multiple Pairings, Murder, No Slash, Not Canon Compliant, Not Suitable/Safe For Work, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Alternating, POV Female Character, POV Male Character, POV Neurodivergent Character, POV Third Person Limited, Present Tense, Rare Pairings, Road Head, Rude Awakening, Sleepwalking, Slow Build, Stalking, This Unsub is a Freakshow, This is NOT Creepy Murder Couple Phone Sex Times, Trapped in a Room with The Freakshow, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, Will Graham & Beverly Katz Friendship, Will Graham Has Encephalitis, Will Graham Loves His Strays, Wordcount: 50.000-100.000, descriptions of illness, protective Beverly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-17
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-02-05 00:08:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 90,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1798312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pink_Siamese/pseuds/Pink_Siamese
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Back home and reunited with her former fiancé, Lumen Pierce hunts for facets of Dexter and takes them to bed, prays that offerings of random sex with nameless men will be enough to keep her personal darkness at bay. </p><p>One night, at the bar of an upscale Minneapolis hotel, she crosses paths with Hannibal Lecter. A night of dangerous vulnerability ensues, sending her life spinning off in reckless, longed-for directions...</p><p>Meanwhile, fresh off the Minnesota Shrike case, Will Graham is sent to Florida, where an accomplished serial killer is using grisly trophies to tell a story on the sand.</p><p>Haunted, he finds himself confronting his subconscious, his desires, and the slow realization that his mind may be coming apart at the seams…</p><p>(…or, a one-night stand with Hannibal Lecter changes Lumen’s life forever.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Serial Killer's First Day In Medical School

The light touch of Lumen’s tires on the pavement brings her into the moment. It feels like a dream, the road unspooling beneath her, floating up, like silk, just brushing the undercarriage. Air pours in, tossing her hair, smelling like pine and heat. The wheel hums in her hands.

Once upon a time, she had a dream just like this. A long road, speeding in the dark, a deep woods ahead. Her destination a forest wrapped tight around a steaming hot heart. She was driving. A child appeared in the backseat, small, pale, her knees up beneath a dirty white dress.

A psychiatrist would say, _this child, Lumen; she is you_. She held Lumen’s dark eyes with her blue ones. “May I have my vitamins when I am at your house?”

Lumen nodded. Smiled. “Yes, of course you can.”

The wind in the windows slashed inside, reeking of hot springs. Shadows rippled onto the little blonde girl’s white face. They loosened her hold on reality, washed her back out into the night.

Here, though, there are no hot springs. Overhead, rushing by though she can’t see them, wanton with summer, stars. The woods rush by, lovely dark and deep.

The tightness in her belly comes. It directs her gaze to the place where the road folds into the earth, a seam of dirty purple light and felted ground.

_until he unclothed her in his garage and showed her_

_how neatly his knife glistened in moonlight_

Her lips move around the words. Her hands hold the wheel. Her tongue smoothes them down. Her foot, numb on the pedal. They wait for her voice.

Here she is, back in this cold place, in the familiarity of Owen, an ease bred out of childhood and nurtured by a collection of chipped and dented experiences. The Man Of The House, he is working. They’ve got him on nights, every other week, gone seven p.m. to seven a.m. He leaves their home larger than it should be.

Once upon a time, Owen pursued an English degree. This, fresh out of high school. The grip of literature faded, but left scars.

“Here’s a poem for you,” he said, turning the screen around.

_A Serial Killer’s First Day In Medical School_.

Lumen felt her flesh, pounded thin and defenseless by the racing of her heart. But, she smiled. Leaned into the words.

“It’s interesting.” He watched her read. “Yes?” He did not read her face. “Gruesome, a bit, but the language. It’s interesting.”

_He breathes slowly, his eyes flitting behind closed eyelids,_

_unable to deal with shriveling, boring sanity,_

_then he becomes a man with a helpless twitch_

How to say Owen, I have knives that I bought in Miami, just before I left. They were very expensive. How to say I keep them in a velvet roll, their sleek little bodies waiting to gleam? How do I say that on nights when the air is humid and thunder mutters over the distant water, when you are sleeping or gone On The Night Shift, I take them out? Hold them? Watch the lightning flicker in their stillness? How to explain that I run my tongue along their dull spines while fantasizing about the sharp side, a whisper of pain, the taste of my own blood?

“Yes,” she had said. “Interesting.”

Lumen looks out the window. Leans one hand out, the wind in her eyes. She weaves her fingers into the slipstream. Her hair flutters around her neck.

“His dead people were warm people,” she whispers. “A few moments ago, whose hearts terrified were pumping iron. Like convulsive lashing of a drowning man.”

* * *

 

Outside, the air is so soft. Hot. She shivers.

Her first time, the man didn’t know what to do. In the blue and pink and purple dark, trapped there, his breath heavy with beer and the calluses on his hands all wrong.

Tonight’s bar is not the same bar. It is too modern, like a kitchen or a morgue, all bare gleaming surfaces.

She had liked the way he looked from the back. That first man. The cut of his shoulders, the way his neck disappeared into the sharp cotton collar. The reddish hue of his close-cropped hair was good but his hips were better. She watched him walk, gliding through blue light, heavy backbeats. The rhythm of his body flooded her mouth.

Lumen strides out of the car. The parking lot sparkles with broken glass. Each strike of her heels ignites a spark inside her guts.

She passes through blood red doors. Refrigerated air falls upon her skin, heavy. It does not stir with the passage of bodies but instead remains limp, passive. She takes a seat at the bar, glances at herself in the mirror.

She waits.

Her skin numbs to the temperature. She holds her drink. There are eyes on her, coming out of the corners, moving through the cultured light, taking her measure. They are not what she needs. She looks into her glass: bubbles and ice and mutilated light.

She becomes more aware of the noise, the low hubbub of it, murmuring, rolling up against the walls when an accented male voice unfolds from it. “Do you know the story of Sif?”

Lumen turns her head. The man’s hand gathers up the thickness of her hair. First she sees a suit, its color the deepest blue, its cut bespoke. The quality of the fabric is gentle, lush, kind to the skin. The soft weight of her hair moves through his fingers. “In the old legends of the Norse, her hair was as wheat in the sun.”

He has a strange face. High, prominent cheekbones. His dark hair sweeps across his forehead in a wave. Eyes like shaded bedroom windows. His mouth is overripe.

He settles onto the stool beside her. “The trickster god, he came to her and cut it while she slept.”

She twitches her shoulders, turns away. “Don’t touch me.”

“What are you here for?”

She glances at him. “I’m bored.”

He orders a glass of wine. “Me too.”

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d prefer to be bored by myself.”

He salutes her with his wine glass. “Ignore me, then.”

She counts the bottles behind the bar. She smells him, the heat of his body, a collection of subtle fragrances murmuring of money. She sits up, sucks down the last of her drink. Ice rattles.

“Would you like another?”

Lumen shakes her head. “I don’t know what the hell I was thinking.” She laughs, turns toward him. “This fucking piano music.”

His eyebrows lift.

“Look, dude, clearly I’m in the wrong place.” She picks up her purse. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I should get out of here. I’ll just…go.”

“You were hunting,” he murmurs, “following the scent of something, all the way to this place, yet you found yourself in the wrong place.” He meets her eyes. “Yes?”

Her mouth fills with the tinny taste of her pounding heart. “Uh—yeah, I guess so. Maybe.” She studies his face. “Do I know you?”

He sips his wine. “What do you want?” He sets the glass down. “What is it you’re…” He pauses. “Hunting for?”

She leans back, drapes her arm on the bar. She smiles a little. “A good time?”

He looks into her eyes. “And what makes, for you, a good time?”

“I…” Heat rolls through her. “I guess I know it when I see it.”

“Unusual,” he says. “Most people have no idea what they’re looking at.”

“Are you staying here?”

He looks around. “At the hotel? Yes.” He nods. “But you…you are not.”

“No.” She crosses her legs. She tilts her head. “But what makes you so sure?”

“You’re not dressed for it.”

Lumen opens her mouth. She sighs. “Okay.” She shoulders her purse. “Look, I suppose it’s the height of entertainment to you to insult me…but me, you know, it’s not working. For me.” Her feet hit the floor. “So have a good night.”

“What I meant is that you’re dressed as though you’re looking for companionship,” he said. “Not as though you’ve spent the last two days in a seminar on the psychopathology of adults, which is precisely what most of the people in this bar have been doing.”

“You mean I’m dressed as though I’m looking for sex.”

He finishes off his wine. “Sex is a form of companionship, is it not?”

“Are you trying to pick me up?”

“Yes.”

“Then cut to the chase, will you?”

“What is your name?”

“Lumen.” She folds her arms. “No last names.”

When he smiles his strange beauty cracks, the angles softening. It carries the dark eyes, the red lips, into warmth. “Do you mean as in intraluminal? That space within the vessels where the blood flows?”

“No, as in units of visible light.”

“Of course.” He holds out his hand. “Hannibal.”

She takes it. “So…you’ve spent the last two days in a seminar on the psychopathology of adults?”

He inclines his head. “Guilty, I’m afraid.”

“What do you do?”

“I am a forensic psychiatrist.” He lifts her hand to his mouth. “What about you?” He kisses her knuckles. “What do you do?”

She blushes. “Nothing anywhere near that interesting.” She pulls her hand away. “After the intraluminal comment, I would’ve guessed something more medical.”

“I did attend medical school.”

_…to sand down the imperfections in the room,_

_in the young teacher whose age much lesser_

_than the number of nails he has driven into necks and spines_

Lumen shivers. “So, are we going anywhere?” She glances around. “I don’t know how I feel about this bar.”

“Yes, you do.”

She meets his gaze. “All right.” She licks her lips. “It’s cold.”

“Go on.”

“Like a morgue. The A/C in here is out of control. Even the lighting seems...designed to flatter pale skin.”

He chuckles. “Then we should go.”

“Yeah.”

He offers his hand. “Come.”

* * *

 

That first time, with that first man, Lumen kept her eyes closed. She allowed herself to drown, in sound, in frantic fingers. Music so loud she could not hear her own breath. Stink of cigarettes. Hot air wet with perspiration.

She drove a long time that night, so long the roads were gone, the sky, the trees, until she was alone in her abjection, naked, her skin clawed away by tears, her veins throbbing their ferocity into the crystalline cold air.

Swing her hips against it, shatter. Falling snow. Eyes swollen tight against the cold.

The parking lot looked warm. The neon, too.

Light poured out into the blackness, flickering like a fire.

* * *

 

The word _forensic_ lodges itself in her. She breathes on it and it starts to glow.

Lumen walks with Hannibal through the bar. His palm is warm, soft and smooth.

The lobby is huge and open, its recessed lights like hot gold, huge and garish paintings splayed across the walls. Faces, lips, all stylized, deconstructed, laid out like insects pinned to corkboards, flowers torn apart into still-lifes. Tears floating on faces. White hands. Broken leaves. They are the night turned inside out, stardust shaken loose onto deep fields of black velvet.

The walls are white. The ceilings are white. The floors are long hard rivers of polished milk, the doorways sewn of bridal silk. There is so much light.

He pushes a button to open the elevator doors. Once inside, surrounded by mirrors, he uses a key.

Smooth momentum flows into her feet.

She watches him, split apart into facets. The precise gleam of his hair. The light inside the elevator is weak, it is cool but not cold, it sharpens everything. The blue of his suit reveals the lines of a subtle plaid. His shirt pale, not white but close to it, a gray the color of water. The tie an iron blade dividing his chest. His hands are long, symmetrical, veins like vines.

“No last names,” he says. “What else?”

She stares at her own reflection. “I’ll make it up as I go.”

He gathers up a handful of her hair. Gooseflesh prickles her scalp. He leans in a little. Her mouth opens. “Cherries,” he murmurs. “Cherries and wood, with a little something.” He lowers her hair, watches her eyes in the mirror. “Gardenia?”

She turns her face toward him. “I don’t know.”

He strokes her hair between his fingers. “Tell me about yourself.”

She watches. “If I don’t want to?”

“Lie.”

“What’s the point, then?”

He drops his hand. “I assure you, Lumen, that lies are nonetheless very telling.”

“If I were to say to you that I am a murderer,” she says, watching him step behind her, “that I have killed, what sort of thing does that say to you?”

Hannibal glances at the reflection of her face. “I would explore, in my mind, how a revelation like that would benefit you.”

“And?”

He pauses, smiles a little. “Are you trying to shock me?”

“I don’t know.” She lifts her chin. “Am I?”

He murmurs into her hair. “Why don’t you try again?”

“ _Could_ I shock you?”

He brings his lips to her ear. “I doubt it very much.”

A hot little shiver trickles down her spine. “Okay,” she sighs. “I used to work at a bank.”

“Did you like it?”

“No.”

The elevator doors slide open.

* * *

 

Deep woods, broken beer bottles, big trucks. Blood had flown through the air of this place, trampled into the gravel. It was a story told by grimy fists.

Big men in a small space, a collection of women crumpled and tossed into the corners. They perched on stools like leftover bits of tinsel and cheap ribbon, flashy, sad. A veil of smoke hung on the blue and pink and purple light. Their half-melted eyes moved behind it, darting after the rhythm of her legs.

The jukebox wailed out the hardships of life.

He came out of the throng, a velvet Elvis, a crude portrait drawn in slashes of acid light with a cartoon sticker for a face. She went to him. Let the music push her body around. She put a finger on his mouth and grinned.

_I don’t even want to know your name._

He crammed her inside a bathroom stall and held her up by her thighs. The small of her back thumped hard, sticky, against the paint.

The knife in her purse flickered. It burned a long cold vigil.

* * *

 

“Make yourself at home,” he says.

Lumen slides her purse off her shoulder. A tin lamp casts a net of shadow across the white ceiling. The floorboards are black; they gleam with a low sheen. The furniture is geometric, cream-colored. All of the table tops are made of glass. Recessed lighting pools brightness around paintings, spare little groups of furniture. Floor to ceiling windows frame the night sky.

Hannibal walks to a small wet bar. “Would you like anything to drink?”

“Water.” The space amplifies the slow click of her shoes. “Ice. Lime, If you’ve got it.”

“I do,” he says.

At the wall of windows, she stops. Beyond them is a long deck arranged with sleek patio furniture. In the distance, lightning stutters and flashes.

“Here you are.”

“Thank you. It was the word forensic.” She looks out the windows. She sips. “That means you study serial killers, right?”

He moves away from her. “Yes.”

“That’s where I came up with it.” She glances at him. “The murder thing.”

He takes a seat at the end of a white sectional. He leans back, crosses his legs. “I suspected as much.”

She shrugs. “The bank thing I made up out of whole cloth.”

He drapes an arm along the tops of the cushions. “Go on.”

“I never worked for a bank.” She turns her back on the panorama. “I haven’t worked for almost a year. I have a master’s degree in sociology. I used to work for Planned Parenthood.”

“Was that rewarding for you?”

“No.” She shook her head. “There was never enough money and it’s like…it’s like people are just, I don’t know, devoted to being cattle. They want to be led around. They crave it.” She takes a sip. “They have no interest in education. The thought of responsibility…the weight of it…it terrifies them. You can smell the fear.”

He glances at her mouth. “On the parents? On the children?” He looks into her eyes. “The adult patients?”

“On all of them.” She drifts toward him. “The workers too. The doctors. Nurses.”

“It made you angry.”

She sets her water on the coffee table. “Yes.”

He tilts his head. “Does it make you angry still?”

“No. Why should it?”

“You haven’t worked in nearly a year.”

She folds her arms. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?”

She turns away. “I don’t think I want to talk about this anymore.”

“Why don’t you tell me about your murders, then.”

She looks over her shoulder. “The murders that aren’t real?”

He smiles. “Yes.”

“They were men. They did bad things to me.”

“How many?”

She moves closer to him. “Two.”

“Do you know that it would take three murders to classify you as a serial killer?”

Lumen dumps her purse in a chair. She steps out of her shoes. “Really?”

“Yes.”

She sits beside him, her knees tight together. “I guess you learn something new every day.”

“What sort of bad things?”

“Rape.” She sucks in a breath. “Torture. They were going to kill me…but I got away.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

Lightning flashes. Shadows jitter and disappear.

“Killing them?” She studies his face.

“Yes, Lumen. The ending of their lives.” Hannibal lowers his voice. “Did you enjoy it?”

“Would it make me a monster if I did?”

“No. You would be a woman thankful to return to a sense of safety.” He watches his finger as he traces the crest of her shoulder blade. “It is only human to desire the restoration of your world.”

She closes her eyes. Beyond the glass, the gentle humming silence of the room, the slow even measure of his breath, the first drops of water strike the deck. He traces the round of her shoulder and her mouth opens on a trembling breath.

“I had a...a boyfriend,” she whispers.

“Yes?”

“He was special.”

He runs a light fingertip along the length of her collarbone. It unzips her spine, rains gooseflesh down her limbs.

“Do you miss him?”

A boom of thunder pushes aside all sound, leaves a pulse of sizzling adrenaline in its wake. It burns off until her skin begins to sing.

“I-I don’t…I’m not sure, I do sometimes, but it’s not like that.” Lumen swallows. “It’s not simple. It’s more c-complicated.”

He moves her hair aside. “What did he do for you, Lumen?”

“He killed,” she whispers.

Hannibal leans in. “These men you spoke of.” His lips brush her neck. “They are not fictions.”

She exhales in a hot rush. “No.”

He slides a hand up her thigh and the fabric of her dress is restless, slippery. He worms his fingers beneath it, squeezes hot skin. She arches a little.

“He is the one that you hunt for in the night. Some shadow of him, this man who killed, who bled them of their power to wound, to maim, to kill.” He nuzzles her cheek and his breath quickens. “Some…taste, of this man. You hunger for it.”

She pushes his hand up her skirt. He runs his thumb along the seam of her pussy. She grabs his forearm.

“Yes,” she breathes. “Yes.”

“Lumen.”

“Yes!”

“Open your eyes.”

The rain draws silver contrails on his skin. Outside, the wind flings itself against the glass. His eyes, dark, without stars, drowse their way into her body. Lightning flickers, tracing the shapes of the bones beneath. His gaze is bold like velvet. His lips tremble close; his breath washes over her, smells of earth, honey, dreaming grapes.

“Kiss me.”

She presses her mouth against his, tight, like it’s a wound, as though she’s bleeding from her voice. With tender fingers, he removes first one earring and then the other.

“Come to bed,” he whispers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poem quoted in this chapter, A Serial Killer's First Day in Medical School by Ajay Vishwanathan, can be read in its entirety here.


	2. Drowning

The rain comes in torrents, hissing, it rushes down the glass and does its weird dance with the colors of the streetlight. Thunder pushes through the glass. Lightning is close.

Here is the bed. Everything in this part of the room is sharp. The platform black, the covering white. Gleaming lamps perch on the wall, insectile. A line of pillows, a series of square shapes, all in a row. The smooth blanket stretches tight over the mattress shape, surrenders itself to the clashing of the light. Lumen walks alongside with her fingers extended.

Hannibal moves behind her. She looks at the rain. He brings the heat of his body close. She shivers. He moves aside the fall of her hair, lowers the zipper on the back of her dress.

A flash of lightning comes, blinding bright.

She turns, tugging the fabric out from his fingers. Her eyes close as she slides fingers up beneath his collar. She loosens the knot in his tie.

“I want you to look at me,” he murmurs, sliding down the thin straps of her dress.

She pulls his tie free. “Why?”

Thunder crashes down. It comes loud enough to hum in the bones.

“I want it to be my face that you see when I do this.” He finishes unzipping her dress. “And this.” He pulls the straps down past her hands.

The tide of Lumen’s blood lifts into her skin, turns it into something else. She keeps her eyes closed. “Is it really so important?”

“What was his name?”

The question hijacks her breath, steers it off to parts unknown. “Does it matter?”

Hannibal cups her breast and kisses the pulse in her neck. The heat of her blood throbs against his mouth, his palm. “Yes.”

She slides her hands over the fabric of his jacket, traces its seams with her fingertips. The threads are tight, the places where it joins together are flat, silken almost, soft the way an animal’s undercoat is soft. The texture of the fabric makes her think of petals, moss. It whispers beneath her trembling touch. The stitchery is feverish; it feels the way a scar feels.

“Dexter,” she breathes.

“I cannot be Dexter for you.” He speaks close to her lips. “I will not.”

She unbuttons his jacket. She unbuckles his belt. “That’s not what I want.”

He steadies her face, presses his mouth to hers. The kiss is tight, hard; it gasps and grows slick, humid, tongues wrestling the ghosts of words. She makes fists of his jacket.

A gust of wind rattles the rain against the window. Lightning stitches through the dark.

Hannibal runs his fingers across the scars on her back. Strokes them. She shudders, her spine contorting. “It was unbearable,” he whispers into her hair, “what these men did to you.”

Lumen burrows her face into his jacket. She nods, rubs her cheek up one lapel and down the other. “Yes,” she whispers.

“What do you want of me?” The words are very quiet, softened by layers of breath and smothered by the heavy beat of his heart.

“You can’t be Dexter,” she murmurs as he traces the curve of her cheek. His fingertip follows the secret arroyos, the muscle memories of her tears. She sighs. “You couldn’t if you wanted to.” He kisses the line of her jaw. Her breath quickens. Her eyes flutter closed. “Already you’re nothing like him.”

He moves his hands over her ass, holds her hips tight against his. “Good.”

She pushes her dress to the floor. He takes down her panties.

Lumen sits down on the edge of the bed, rain behind her sluicing down the glass and spreading heavy pewter light across the room; he stands over her, looks down into her face as he slides the jacket off, one sleeve at a time. She looks up and longs to breathe, to inhale his revelation of Scandinavian skin, sharp bones, the sinew moving beneath flats of dark hair, but there’s no oxygen; it’s trapped between the thunder of her blood and its voracious heat.

He lets his shirt drop onto the floor.

She pulls his belt free.

He strokes her hair. The fabric of his pants is clean and light, it’s the same fine quality as the rest of his clothes; the weave is so fine, so smooth, that it’s like a second skin. Up close, the plaid is like streets laid out in a grid. It’s warm, almost tender. She breathes in, caresses its softness. The heat of him exudes through the fabric. It warms her face. Beneath his fly, that hard bend of cock, pressing. The heat of blood.

Lumen presses her face to his fly and breathes in, fills her mind with his dark forest scent. He skims his hands over hers, his touch light, it moves down her forearms. She unzips his pants, leans her forehead against the rise and fall of his belly. The quick sound of his breath glides over the noise of the rain.

Hannibal cups her face. His cock is heavy in her hand, firm. It pulses in her grip. His thumbs stroke her temples.

The skin is hot, sumptuous in her mouth. Her tongue sweeps the ridge and it is sleeker than what she is used to, the foreskin soft, tender. It runs over the veins, feels their swift currents. In the skin lives a memory of the ocean, a bitter ghost of soap. She looks up. He’s looking down at her, hair fallen onto his brow, mouth open and breathing hard. Slick salt floods her tongue. His hairline glitters with sweat. The length of him pulses, tight and hard, against the roof of her mouth. He grabs her hair, utters a foreign word. Her eyes are closed and in the darkness his accent is thick, grating, smeared with the dirt of his homeland. She feels the clench in his throat, his raw breath, and it scatters hot gooseflesh across her body. She squeezes her thighs tight around the sudden throb of her cunt.

“Yes.”

Lumen looks into his eyes and they are softened, unmoored, adrift in silver shadow. His mouth is flushed. He holds her hair in a fist.

“Yes,” he pants. “Good. That’s good.”

She pulls back, holds the head of his cock close to her lips. She lowers her eyelids. Her hand slides up and down. “Shall I stop?”

“No.”

She covers the head with her mouth and strokes, sucking and pumping. His breath hollows, drops into his chest. It pushes out of him in long soft growls.

Subtle color wells up, flares across her cheeks. The corners of her mouth tremble. “I want you.”

He looks into her eyes. Outside, the rain slackens. Towering clouds glow with distant lightning. The lights of the city are garish; the rain has tarnished them into cheap jewels.

He unlaces his shoes. She sits, crosslegged, and watches him take off his pants. He reaches for a small lacquered bowl on the nightstand, takes out a condom. He unrolls it. The trapped veins swell tight into its translucent skin. He climbs onto the bed, turns onto his back.

In his stillness, the angles of his body hint at motion. The rise and fall of breath moves all through him. She straddles his hips and gravity falls away from her knees, leaving her with a sensation of breath, of hair tickling her face, of cool air settling over her skin.

“Open your eyes.”

She does, startled. They had been closed, she had had no idea. She had slipped off to imagine the light touch of his gaze, the way it slid deep into her blood. The sensation of his skin is foreign, smooth, he’s warmer than he should be with the cold color of his skin, the paleness of his hands. His heat spreads out over her, draws back, it comes over her in long gentle waves. She imagines the murmuring of her blood in return.

Her eyes are closed again. Her breath falls onto his breath. He touches her breasts in this soft pulsing dark, in the quiet, rain tapping the glass. He pinches her nipples. He does it slow, with mounting pressure. She moans. The pain comes, raw, it trembles inside of her until it flashes out to her edges and she is pulled tight, the rhythm of her breath reined in.

“God,” she gasps.

He is patient, measured. He holds her breasts, circles the nipples with his tongue. The thorough attention of his mouth weakens her. She imagines the murmuring of her blood in return, her breath disrupted by the firm hard stride of her blood, warmed by it. He catches her nipple in his teeth. The sharp pleasure of it flickers through her, twists her body until she’s trapped in his breath, borne aloft by its steady climb.

His cock pushes in, she gasps. The spreading of it, the sweet pressure, so tight, it burns a little, it has been so long.

She is seized by a tension, timorous, hot and breathing, all over her body. It is a sudden desire that is so much like hunger, or thirst, that it becomes its own thing. It is borne out of her, and yet it takes over. It clamors in her blood. Her body clenches around him, caresses the invader.

Outside, a smattering of thunder. A gust of wind. In the room, in her body is her heart, huge and wild and booming.

Hannibal closes his eyes.

She pants and looks down at his face, shadowed by her hair. She drinks in its strange transformation, the lines in it softened, the jutting angles of his jaw, the abandoned brows, the trembling eyelashes. His mouth, the tips of his teeth, a carnivorous flower just starting to bloom.

She props herself on her palms, grinds her hips. He grips her thighs.

“Open your eyes,” she whispers.

He holds her hips. Bites his bottom lip. Pushes up into her.

She sweeps her hair off his face. “Open.”

His eyelids lift halfway. Beneath them, caught in the shifting light, the darkness of his eyes lies in wait. “Do I feel good to you?”

“Yes! God, yes!”

He slips the pad of his thumb over the slick ridge of her clit. Her breath comes harder, it tumbles out, her mouth falls opens around its great rush.

“Yes, that’s it,” he whispers.

Like a fit it takes her, rides her limbs, joints unbolting until her fingers clench his wrists, her nails breaking into him, her breath torn apart. Sparks of intense pleasure fly off her womb, collide with her skin. Little by little, she comes back. The room flows back into her, its brimstone scent of sweat, the wild pulsing in her ears, the cold air, the harshness of the light.

He groans.

She breathes over him, watches his orgasm spread over his face, storming his features one by one: his eyes caught in tight webs, his loosened jaw, a shade of blood cresting over him like a wave of sunset light.

Still, the sound of rain. It dances across the silence.

Lumen climbs off him.

He catches his breath. “Is it what you expected?”

She stretches onto her side. “No.”

“What did you expect?”

“That the sex would be worse.”

Hannibal leaves the bed. He walks into the living room to turn off the lights. Lumen watches him go. She touches the rumpled space where he had been, caresses the warmth. She rolls onto her back.

“I could come down out of my mind.” The rain makes patterns on the ceiling. “I haven’t been able to stay in my body, not during sex, in a very long time.”

“Would you like something to drink? Some food?”

“No.” She giggles. “I’m fine. Really.”

“Very well. Suit yourself.” He returns to the bed, switches off the bedside lamp. He lies down beside her. “What will you do?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugs, looks at the white walls. “Go home. I guess.”

He turns onto his side. “Is that what you want?”

“I don’t know.” She curls an arm beneath her cheek. She smiles. “What do you want?”

“I have enjoyed you.” He looks in her eyes. “Very much.”

A corner of her mouth lifts. “More than you thought you would?”

He grins. “Perhaps.”

“So, do you just like blondes?”

“No. Not especially.” He studies her face. “There is something about you that is interesting to me. Some way of moving through the world. There is vulnerability in you, but there are moments where it becomes camouflage. That is what caught my attention.” He tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. “The change.”

“I’m not sure what to say to that.”

He shrugs. “There’s no need to say anything.”

She sighs. “I don’t want to go home.”

“That is not my decision to make.”

“There’s…there’s a warm body at home. Not there now, not literally, but there is.” She rolls her eyes. “He was my college boyfriend, we were going to get married and then I just couldn’t do it. So, I ran away. Literally, like that whole stupid runaway bride thing, and that’s when…”

“Yes?”

“That’s when…when those guys…”

“Shall I hug you? Would that feel safe?”

“I don’t know.”

Hannibal moves enough to unmake the bed. He pulls the blanket, the softest sheet, up to her breasts. “Is that better?”

Lumen pulls the covers tight around her. “Yes.”

“Go on.” He pauses. “Only if you want to.”

“I…I don’t even know how it happened, one of them must’ve drugged me or something, I don’t know, but I was at this bar and then the next---minute, morning, I don’t know---I was in an abandoned building. They had done it before. I didn’t know it, but I think I did. I didn’t want to know it. All the signs were there.” She closes her eyes, whispers. “Stains on the floor. Chains. But, when you’re being tortured, when you’re being held captive, time changes. You lose your grip. I don’t know how many days they had me there. They beat me, they cut me. Sometimes they gave me water. There was a lot of rape. I don’t know how many times.”

“But you got away.”

“Yes!”

“Then Dexter came into your life.”

“He saved me. I don’t mean that in some hokey metaphorical way, either. Literally. One of the guys was holding me in his attic, he had it all retrofitted with heavy duty locks and reinforced doors.” She moves hair out of her face. “You see, he and his friends had been doing this for a long time.” She moves onto her belly, looks down. “And this guy, it was his job to kill us, when they were done with us. Dexter had been tracking him for a long time.” She licks her lips. “He knew he was killing people. So he came to the man’s house, and he killed him.” She stares off into the hallway. “I saw him do it. I was at the door, peeking through the mesh-reinforced glass, and I saw him. He saw me. I was going to die, but he saw me. He saved me.”

“Telling this story has made you beautiful.” She turns her face away but he cups it, turns it back to him. “It reddens your mouth,” he murmurs, “and it dilates your eyes. They’re sparkling.”

“I felt good that he died the way he did,” she whispers, touching his knuckles. “He deserved it.”

“Did he drown in you, this man called Dexter?”

“Y-Yes, I think so. He might have.” She blushes and shakes her head. “I don’t know.”

“Did you want him to?”

“Aren’t I supposed to?”

He chuckles. “Some would accuse womankind of destroying that which she loves.”

“Would you?”

“Only if the memory of him is pulling you under. Is it pulling you under, Lumen?”

She starts to cry.


	3. Slice Of Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains references to season one (Hannibal).

Lumen falls asleep. Still sniffling, her eyes still leaking, she drifts off and hovers in sleep for awhile, adrift. When she comes to the rain has passed. It’s hot under the blankets, her skin damp with sweat. She sits up, pushes them off.

She looks over. Hannibal is still there, on his side, one arm curled beneath the pillow. The collection of rooms, the orange city lights and neons filtering into their vast darkness, are brimful with silence.

Lumen gets out of bed. Her hair sticks to the side of her face. There are wrinkles pressed into her skin from the sheets. The cool floor eases the soles her feet. She goes into the bathroom; it is a white box, the tiny blue tiles of the bathroom shimmer like a moonlit sea.

She sits down on the toilet, in the dark. She shivers a little. The sound of urine hitting water echoes a little in her head. Her face feels tight, feverish. She flushes the toilet and walks to the sink, looks in the mirror. She sighs. Shadows swallow her mouth, sharpen her eyes into obsidian.

_Did he drown in you?_

Lumen puts on a robe and walks out onto the deck. The air is cool, damp. Water clings to everything. She puts her hands on the cold rail. The air smells of diesel and leaves. Somewhere distant, a car alarm blasts over and over and over.

The hotel has five floors and peering over the edge produces no vertigo in her; there is no sudden strange desire to jump. She thinks there should be, that there could be. And why not? She is elevated, not so high as other buildings but far enough off the ground to forget herself. There are no windows close to her. Only squares of light, far enough away to be reduced to their brightness, and the color of the sky: deep glassy blue.

“For you.”

She turns. Hannibal is there, wearing a robe, with a glass of ice water with lime in his hand. She takes it. Smiles a little. “Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome.”

She takes a sip. “I’m sorry if I woke you.”

He studies her face. “What will you do?”

She shrugs, glances off to one side. “I don’t know. Go home, I guess.”

“Stay.”

She drinks down half the glass. She wipes her mouth. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. I don’t think it is.”

“It is very late already. The sun will be up soon.”

“Yes. I know.”

“Allow me to buy you breakfast.”

“It’s…it’s a drive. Not as long as it could be.” Lumen studies his face. “I never intended to spend the night away from home.”

“The sun will rise within the hour.”

“I suppose it will, yes.”

“Please.” A slight smile settles into his face, reflects in his eyes. “Allow me this small gesture.”

She holds the glass by her face. She looks into his eyes, but she does not drink.

He holds her gaze. “Will you stay?”

“Do you think that I wanted him to drown?”

“Will you?”

“Yes.”

“Desire is made up of many faces. One bears the urge to destroy. But that is only one face.”

“I don’t know if he drowned.” She takes a sip. “But he may have wanted to. I think there is a part of Dexter that has always wanted to die.”

“There is a part of everyone that wants to die.”

“Yes.”

Lumen pulls her robe tighter, it’s raw outside, the air has an edge to it sharpened by the darkest hour of the morning.

“It’s too cold out here. Come back to bed.”

“I like it.”

He holds out his hand. “You’re shivering.”

“I’m okay. Really.” She grins. “We Minnesota girls are tough.”

“Do you remember the Minnesota Shrike?”

“Yeah.” Lumen takes his hand. “Everyone does. Why?”

“I assisted the FBI with that case.”

She takes a step toward him. “Really?”

“Yes.”

“That was the one with…”

“The cannibalism. Yes.”

“That’s not what I was going to say.” She glances at the door. “What I was going to say is, that was the one with the antlers.”

“Yes. That too.”

She looks at him. “All those parallels with hunting.”

“He wanted nothing to go to waste.”

“That’s…I want to say it’s disgusting, the cannibalism especially…but in reality it’s almost admirable.”

“Do you think so?”

“The level of dedication to finding a use for every part of the…the body? Yes.” She looks him over. “Our society is very wasteful.”

He inclines his head. “That it is. Shall we?”

“Yes.”

As they walk back inside, the eastern horizon hazes into a shade of gunmetal gray. The light is gray too; it falls across the floor like ash.

“Do you want to sleep?”

Lumen shrugs out of the robe. “I want to try.”

“You’re cold.” He runs a finger down the outside of her arm. “To the touch, even.”

“I’ll be all right.”

Lumen climbs into the bed. She turns onto her side, tucks the pillow beneath her cheek. She looks out the floor-to-ceiling windows. Hannibal draws the heavy drapes.

He gets into bed, pulls the blankets up over her shoulders. He brings himself close, the heat of his skin pouring into hers. He puts an arm around her.

“You Minnesota girls are very cold,” he murmurs into her hair.

She shivers and laughs. “Only on the outside.”

Lumen closes her eyes. The empty silence of the room settles around her, falls in gentle drifts atop the rhythm of Hannibal’s breath. The bed warms up, heat drowsing its way into her blood.

She thinks about the sky, rain slithering down the other side of the glass and making contrails of the light. She sees it, flickering, the image filtered through darkness. She wants to move but her body feels too heavy.

_Dreaming. I’m starting to dream._

She closes her eyes again. She drifts in the darkness for a long time before she rising up into a flickering light. She slides out from beneath the ponderous weight of her limbs and opens her eyes. She sits up. The bedroom is lit with silver, it spills up from the living room where the curtains are still open and oscillates against the white walls. A breeze blows up past the bed; the air is soft, she feels its silken warmth flutter against her skin. It stirs the curtains away from the windows.

Lumen pushes back the covers. She wings her legs over. The floor is buried in rose petals. Their scent fills her head with hot, dizzying sweetness.

The wind gusts, brings with it a scent of salt.

She moves into the wind, follows it to the cavernous living room; the petals swirl, there are all colors, they blow in drifts up against the wall and catch on the legs of furniture. They scatter across the tops of the glass table, the odor of the sea mixing into their perfume, salt and long hours of sunshine, the scent of living things swimming like secrets.

All around her, a flood of moonlight.

Lumen steps out onto the deck. Beyond it stretches the sea, blackened by midnight and shimmering beneath the moon. Petals float on the water, too, a long winding wake of them. Calm, they float on the surface, the water smooth, petals turning slowly down into perfect stillness. The moon, though full, is nowhere near bright enough to bleach out the stars.

She walks to the rail, puts her hands on it. She leans over. “Dexter?”

He looks up. His boat, rocking atop the water, so gentle, the white hull plastered with petals. He’s wearing his black rubber butcher’s apron. He’s got a trash bag in his hands. “Lumen?”

“Yes!” She waves. “Yes! It’s me!”

“What are you doing here?”

“I don’t know.” She shakes her head. “I’m not sure. I think this is a dream.”

Dexter tosses the trash bag into the water. “You should go back.”

“Why?”

“The water’s not good. Unstable. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“But I want to see you! It’s been so long.” Lumen puts one foot on the bottom of the rail, hoists herself up. “Don’t go back in to the shore, not yet.” She swings one leg over. “I can swim to you. It’s not far.”

“No! No, don’t be stupid, there are sharks!” he calls out, his hands cupped around his mouth. “There’s blood in the water, remember?”

Lumen hangs onto the rail, arms stretched behind her. She leans forward.

“No! NO GODDAMMIT!”

Lumen hears him scramble away from the stern, fling himself onto the seat, start up the engine. Its throaty roar booms out over the water’s still surface. Her foot touches the water. It’s cool but not cold, rising up over her toes. She can’t see her skin for the petals.

Dexter yells over the sound of the motor. She’s not sure, but it sounds like _WAIT LUMEN JUST WAIT FOR ME_

Resistance comes up beneath her toes. Lumen blinks, shifts her weight, and her foot pushes down on something that feels sort of like a mattress wrapped in a thick quilt and sort of like a trampoline net but not much like either.

Dexter drives the boat away from her, swings it around in an erratic arc. The churned-up water spreads out in choppy white rings.

Lumen lets go of the rail. She stands on one foot, arms held out, her back leg lifted like a ballerina poised into an arabesque. Softly, gently, she brings her other foot down. She looks toward the boat and stands, ankle-deep in rose petals, atop the water. Dexter sees her and cuts the engine. The waves cut into the sea by his wake roll beneath her, lifting her up and then down, up and then down. She looks around and smiles. The boat drifts sideways.

“I can walk!” She takes a step, then another step, arms held out against the mild turbulence of the water. “See?” She grinned. “I can walk to you! Let me walk to you instead!”

Dexter looks at her and starts to smile, the fear not quite out of his face, and his desire to smile and his fading fear do a dance on his features while he stumble-steps to the stern and holds out his arms.

_(but lumen i have these tickets we can go around the world together)_

She frowns, shakes her head.

“Be careful! Watch your step!”

Lumen looks down. Shark fins cut through the water, making elaborate shapes around her feet. They’re small. One heads straight for her left foot and she steps over it. Another heads to her right foot and she side-steps. The water rises and falls, rises and falls. She starts to sway.

“It’s a dance,” says Dexter. “Watch your steps.”

She looks up. He’s smiling at her now, all the fear and unsteadiness has left his body and he’s got that prowling stance that she likes, that she has spent months hunting down in the Midwestern wilderness, and she’s close enough to see the musculature of his arms, the glint of red hairs, those bricklayer hands reaching out…

She looks down. Bleached white faces float beneath her feet. Erosions in the skin show musculature beneath thin curds of fat. It pulls in thin strings away from the bone. It looks like cheap steak. The ball of her foot obscures the mouth and chin of a face she has never seen before: water-blackened hair, stubbled jaws, eyebrows like spread wings. Long dark eyelashes.

The eyelids snap open. The eyes beneath are a bleached-out blue beneath bleared corneas, a color like frozen lakes.

Lumen gasps awake. She pushes the blankets off her neck and closes her eyes, listens to the thud of her heart. Through the glass crawls faint traffic sounds. The frantic race of her pulse subsides and she opens her eyes, looks at the ceiling. It is awash in gray-blue light. Hannibal continues to sleep; his body is turned toward his side of the bed, long white back curved and half-turned toward to the ceiling.

She tumbles out of bed, snatches her dress and underpants off the floor. She picks up Hannibal’s phone, left on the nightstand: 6:14 a.m. She steps into her panties.

She hurries into the living room, dances her way back onto her dress. She picks up her purse with one hand while zipping up with the other. She digs out her phone

_(it’s a dance so watch your steps)_

She shakes her head. A sound of the ocean rises and subsides in her ears. Her eyes squeeze shut. She puts the phone down, gathers up her hair, fishes an elastic out of her purse. She twists her hair around, puts it up. She picks up her phone.

She lights the screen. She looks over two missed calls, her emails. There’s a text from her mother. Dead faces flash across the back of her mind.

Lumen picks up her shoes by the straps. Her hand trembles. She crosses the room, slips out the door.


	4. Sif And The Trickster God

Lumen sits in the parking lot of a McDonald’s, greasy paper crinkling in her fingers. She takes a huge bite. Her windows are open, letting in the damp air. The sun burns through a layer of hazy white clouds, eye-wateringly bright.

She wipes the grease off one hand and picks up her phone. There’s another text from her mother, looking to confirm a lunch date.

She looks out the windshield. The grass, a vigorous green, glitters with rain. Leaves sway over her car, releasing fat drops of water. The irregular sound taps through her trance.

She finishes her food and crumples up the wrapper, tossing it back into the bag. She takes a long drink of iced coffee, feels the caffeine hit her bloodstream. She swipes the receipt off the dashboard. The folds it up, moves to tuck it into her wallet when she notices the edge of a creamy vellum card peeking out from behind her Visa. She shoves the receipt in with the cash.

With her fingertips, she eases the card out. She tilts it, bright sunlight falling across the front. The design is elegant, sparse, silver and black engraved into a smooth ivory background:

 

  
_Dr. Hannibal Lecter_  
_Doctor of Psychiatric Medicine_  
_Psy. D., M.D._

Below that, a Baltimore address, a fax number, an office number.

Lumen turns it over. Written on the back in an antiquated hand, in the unmistakable strokes of a fountain pen, is a short note.

_I have greatly enjoyed our time together. Should you ever find yourself in Baltimore, do not hesitate to get in touch. I would love to see you again._

Lumen’s face gets hot. Below that, close to the bottom edge, a handwritten mobile phone number. She puts the card on her lap. She picks up her phone, taps out a reply to her mother’s text. She sucks in a breath, lets it out in a long hard sigh. She looks up for a moment, thinks. She opens up a new text window and double-checks every digit before typing it in.

_[Me: I’m sorry I ran out on you after telling you that I would stay. Something came up. Forgive me?]_

She hits send, stuffs the phone back into her purse and turns the ignition key. She looks in the mirror, wipes the grease off her face. Steps on the brake. Shifts the car out of park.

The phone buzzes. She freezes, both hands on the wheel, and looks down at her purse. Her heart swells against her ribs, kicks into a swift rhythm. She slaps the car back into park and yanks her phone out. She looks at it, smiles a little, sighs and rolls her eyes. Breathlessly, she starts to laugh.

“Mom, I really don’t care where we go,” she says, putting the car in reverse. She turns her head, looks over her shoulder. “No, really, wherever you want to go is fine.” The car inches backward. “Lumen, you’re being dumb. Dumb, dumb, dumb.” She laughs, shaking her head. She puts the car in drive.

As she rolls up to the road, the phone buzzes a second time.

“Goddammit, really?” She looks in her rearview, stomps the brake, and wrestles the phone out.

_[Hannibal: Your apology is accepted. Thank you, Lumen. It is my fondest hope that you enjoy the rest of your day.]_

The morning air feels cool on her flushed cheeks. A slow grin crosses her face. She lets the phone slide back into her purse and does a little low-down fist pump. “Now that’s what I’m talking about.”

A horn honks long and loud. She jumps, looks in the rearview and flinches. The man in back of her glares and lays all of his weight on the horn.

“All right, all right, you got me,” she yells, scanning the road. She leans over, peers past some low-lying shrubbery, and turns into traffic.

The man speeds past her. He taps the horn and gives her the finger. She shakes her head at him, hair blowing. She sticks her arm out the window and gives it right back.

Once on the highway, she rolls up the windows and turns on the air conditioning. She puts the radio on, restlessly surfs the channels.

“C’mon, give me something that won’t put me to sleep,” she murmurs. “That is all I ask. I don’t think it’s too much.”

After awhile, she gives up. The road winds deeper into the trees, all of them so green; the clouds break apart into a clear blue like the still depths of a warm ocean. She drives, the wheel humming in her hands. Her thoughts wander along the backs of the white lines, serpentine. They slither deep into her memories.

_I did not actually spend much time down there on the water under the sun. In my memories, the bay of Biscayne is always black._

She feels a sharp urge to go back, to take a boat and ride out until the land is a thin sparkling line and look down into the depths of that pale blue water, milky in places, almost green, a color unlike anything else in her world.

_It’s not the first time. I don’t think it will be the last time, either._

The feeling settles into her stomach, weighs it down. She rolls the window down to let the heat of the day fill the car but it’s dry; the evaporating remnants of the night’s thunderstorms are not enough to replicate the weight of Florida air, its tactile quality, its smothering sweetness.

Lumen pulls over onto the shoulder. Traffic rushes by, rocking her car on its wheels. She takes out her phone and calls Owen. She knows he’s asleep, his phone on vibrate. It’s early enough, yet late enough, so that he should be in deep sleep.

_Don’t answer the phone. Please. Just…don’t._

Voicemail picks up. She sighs and closes her eyes, rubs her forehead. “Hey, it’s me. I couldn’t sleep last night so I drove into the city pretty early for breakfast at Hell’s Kitchen. I was gonna do some shopping too but I couldn’t find anything worth spending money on. I’ll be home soon.”

She hangs up and looks out the passenger side window. There’s a split-wood fence and beyond that, a broad and sweeping field dotted with sun-bleached boulders. Three horses graze at the far end, clustered beneath the rippling shade of a windbreak. The shadows of the leaves make dappled patterns on their dark hides. Hot wind gusts against the back of her head, smelling like hay and asphalt.

_Will I be home soon?_

She puts her hand on the keys. She glances in the rearview in time to see a dark blue sedan pulling onto the shoulder behind her. Lumen’s mouth quirks as she sits back, brushing flyaway chunks of hair away from her face. She pulls the elastic out of her hair. A man leans his head out the driver’s side window, squinting behind a pair of dark-rimmed glasses.

In the side mirror, she watches the driver’s side door open. “Great. A good Samaritan.” She talks around the elastic in her teeth, manhandles her hair into a ponytail. “Just what I need right now. The goodness of his heart is probably directly proportionate to the blondeness in my hair. Does he stop for fat old ladies, I wonder?”

The man closes the door, approaches her window. There is a hesitation in his steps. He’s got his phone in his hand. Lumen turns around, shading her eyes with the flat of her hand. He’s wearing khaki shorts and a short-sleeved button-up shirt. He looks at her, holds the phone out like he’s surrendering a weapon. The sun makes amber glints in his hair.

“Hi,” he said. “Are you all right? Are you having trouble?”

“No.” Lumen shakes her head. “I’m fine. No car trouble or anything like that. I just pulled over to make a phone call.” She pulls her phone out of her purse, holds it out the window. “See?”

“Okay, good.” He smiles, doesn’t make eye contact. “I saw you sitting here when I passed you by and just…I don’t know, thought it would be a good idea to turn around and double check.”

“Thank you. I appreciate it.”

He nods. “No problem.”

Lumen looks in his eyes. There’s something raw about them; their color is like water, shifting from slate to sea, sky to thunder. “This is gonna sound hokey, I know.” She tilts her head, glances at his crooked mouth. “But are you from around here?”

“What, me? No. No, not at all.” He shades his forehead with the flat of his hand. He smiles a little. “I’m here on business. I live in Virginia.”

“Okay.” She shakes her head a little. “I was gonna say that you look familiar. I don’t know. Maybe you’ve just got one of those faces.” She holds up a hand. “I swear, I’m not hitting on you.”

He blushes, chuckles and glances down. “Well,” he says, looking up with a one-sided grin, “now that we’ve got that all sorted out.”

“I know, right?” Lumen starts the car back up. “Thank you, though. Seriously. It was nice of you.”

He steps back and nods. “Drive safe.”

“You too. Have a safe trip.” She pauses. “Back home, I mean.”

“Thank you. I’ll try.”

She watches him return to his car. He climbs in, shuts the door. He looks at her through the windshield before starting the engine.

* * *

 

That evening, Lumen sits by the window with her laptop while the sky silvers into twilight. She listens to Owen upstairs as she scrolls through Facebook, the sound of water in the pipes. He hums beneath the hiss of the shower. Behind her, a pile of dirty dishes.

She closes Facebook and opens Google, types in Sif and the trickster god.

“Loki,” she murmurs, eyes moving in lines back and forth. “Supremely clever and possessed of a silver tongue, he used it to ensnare everyone in complicated designs to which he then provided the key.”

She pauses, takes a slow sip of chai.

“The gods eventually punished him for his misdeeds by taking the entrails of his son and binding him fast to three rocks—one beneath his head, one beneath his knees, and one beneath his loins—and over him bade dwell a deadly snake whose fangs continuously drip venom into his face. It is the burden of his faithful wife Sigyn to hold a bowl above him, to catch the venom. When the bowl brims over, she carries it away from him to dump out its deadly contents. As the venom strikes his face, the god Loki writhes in his suffering and brings earthquakes to Midgard.”

She scrolls down, clicks on a couple of links.

“Sif and Loki.”

Owen walks into the kitchen, hair still damp. He leans against the doorway.

“Sif, the wife of Thor,” continues Lumen, leaning forward, her chin in her hand, “had beautiful hair that fell past her feet; its color was that of wheat fields in the sun. One day, while she was sleeping, the trickster god Loki, god of thieves and adventurers, cut it off. He left stubble on her lovely head, akin like the stubble of flayed autumn fields. While she cried out in anger, Thor thundered through the halls of Asgard, threatening the worst punishments he could devise and aiming to bring them down on the head of the perpetrator. Loki, fearing the vengeance of Thor, traveled to Asgard and to Smifhelm, home of the dwarves, to ask for help. At Loki’s behest they got to work, spinning threads of hair longer than before, finer, and wrought out of the most precious gold. Loki came back to Sif the next day with the new hair and promised that it would take root on Sif’s head and grow there, that it would surpass the hair he had shaved off with his blade. Sif placed the hair on her head and to her delight and Loki’s relief it grew and grew long, until it passed her feet, and when she went to the window the sun gleamed upon it with all the vigor of summer. The gods' fury was appeased.”

“Hey,” says Owen. “What’s this? Story time?”

Lumen flinches and half-turns. “Jesus, you cared the shit out of me.” She pulls her feet up onto the chair and hugs her knees. She rubs her forehead and giggles. “Wear a bell, will you?”

“Sorry.” He walks into the kitchen. “What are you looking at?”

“I was just looking up some Viking myths.” She pushes the computer away and shrugs. “Something made me think of it. Is there anything you want me to do tonight?”

“Sleep,” he says. “Which, speaking of, if you’re having insomnia you probably shouldn’t be drinking tea this late at night. Try cutting it out and see if that helps.”

Lumen makes a face. “Ruin all my fun.”

He chuckles, walks over and kisses the top of her head. “I worry about you. Do you think it would be easier if I went to days? Is it the sleeping alone that bothers you?”

“No, no. It’s…I don’t know what my problem is.” She closes the laptop. “I’m probably just bored. There are only so many jobs I can apply for in a day and sooner or later all the chores get caught up."

“What? You aren’t enjoying almost-daily lunches with your mother?”

“I am, I am.” Lumen rolls her eyes. “Don’t get me wrong. Well…I enjoy the times she manages not to talk about Miami. Which is a thing that happens. Sometimes.”

“She just worries.”

“I know she does, but we’ve talked about that already and I don’t want to talk about it anymore. It was a stupid thing to do. I can agree with that most of the time.” Lumen folds her arms. “That should be enough.”

“Why did you go?”

“I told you already.” She turns her head. “I wanted to go somewhere where it wasn’t seventy five below in the winters. A place with ocean. At the time, it seemed like a good place to be.”

“Miami’s really dangerous, though.”

“Everywhere’s dangerous. Some places hide it more than others.”

“But around here isn’t…”

“Hello, Minnesota Shrike?” Lumen stands. “That was thirty miles away from here.” She taps her finger on the table. “From this house. Has everyone forgotten that already? Or is just that overwhelming desire people have to pretend that their hometown is special in some way? It’s like people think that moral depravity is this trendy thing and has no interest in flyover country.”

“I’m sorry I brought it up.”

She sits back down. She picks up her tea. “I’m sorry you did too.”

He sighs. “I’ve got to go.”

“I know.”

Owen leans over, kisses her cheek. Lumen sits still.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” he says.

“Okay.” Her smile is quick, freezes, seems to melt off her face. “I hope your day doesn’t suck.”

Owen pauses a moment, then turns and hauls his backpack up off the floor. His silences makes her think that he wants to say something, but instead he loops the backpack over his shoulder. He turns. Lumen sits with her back to the doorway, listening to his footfalls cross the living room.

Lumen Googles Minnesota Shrike. She passes a handful of local links, clicks on one that shows up purple in her search results:

 

IN THE MINNESOTA SHRIKE’S NEST: EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS

She glances at the site name. _Tattlecrime.com. Of course._

Out of habit, she scrolls through the Miami tag first. She clicks back over and looks through the collection of photos.

She sees racks of antlers mounted on the walls and ceiling, the light of one window transforming a cabin attic into a ghoulish cave. Blackened wood on the floor in the shapes of bloodstains.

She clicks the Minnesota Shrike tag at the bottom of the post.

 

IT TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE

ANOTHER SHRIKE IN THE NEST?

Lumen pushes her chair away from the computer. The sudden intake of her breath cracks the stillness of the kitchen.

_This is gonna sound hokey, I know. But are you from around here?_

_I was gonna say that you look familiar. I don’t know. Maybe you’ve just got one of those faces._

The picture isn’t that good, it’s too saturated, the winterlight does the lens no favors at all but it’s the curly disheveled hair that makes her draw a shaking line between the man in the photo and the man in the blue car.

That, and the delicate little bags under his eyes.

Lumen opens a new tab, bring ups Google. Her fingers fly. She runs an image search on Will Graham. She stares at the screen.

Same dark-rimmed glasses. Same long, flushed, lopsided mouth.

Her hand drifts to her face. Her fingers cover her mouth. “Oh, shit.”


	5. Night Bleeding

Will sprawls atop the bed, stripped to his boxers.

Outside, beneath the lowering dark, the trees are shrouded in deep purple. Momentum hums in his bones. He’s still tied to unfurling miles, still plowing through rare air at triple-digit speeds. Crickets crank up against the heat into a shrill, rapid pulse. In his mind, he sees a road. Light flashes off the broken white line. Countryside flows by, swift and foggy.

He’s so tired he cannot wear his own skin. The exhaustion drags through him, catches on a dank streambed. He twitches and stirs up old silt, tides, the desire for forgetfulness.

The house, marooned in the woods. The tall trees, the grass. Shipwrecked.

Inside each room, the air is thick and still. It stinks of wood. Each room is stacked to the rafters with shadows. His bedroom, stained with thin yellow luminescence, is full of dogs. They pant, the heat of their bodies gentle and languid.

A light breeze strokes his skin. The fatigue of his blood takes him by the hand, leads him toward dawn. His limbs creak the mattress. Claws click against the hardwood floors.

“No,” he mutters.

His phone buzzes. He turns into a thin sheen of sweat, reaches toward the nightstand. He fumbles it into his hand. “I just got home.”

“Hello, Will.”

He opens his eyes. “Jack.”

“I wouldn’t disturb you if weren’t important.”

Will rubs his forehead. “This can’t wait until morning?”

“It could, but I would rather it didn’t.”

Will sighs. “What have you got?”

“Something I want to show you.”

He sits up, opens his glasses. “Is this going to make me happy?”

“I’m afraid not.”

He pulls his tablet out of his carry-on bag, flips open the case. “Now, on a scale of one to horribly gross—ˮ

“Two girls were found this morning on a beach near Miami.”

He taps the screen, turns the tablet on its side. “—what am I going to see?”

“Have you opened any of the files yet?”

The image fills his mind, drowned in light, churned-up white sand blinding. In the picture, on the beach, lies a young blonde woman. Her hair is long, tangled, gritty with sand. Hanks of green seaweed weave through it and cling to skin so pale it’s translucent. Her neck, broken stem. Her hand rests half-open beside her face. The lividity underlines her like a sunburn. Beyond, out of focus, a blazing sun scatters pinpricks across pale blue water.

“She’s been posed,” says Will. “Her eyes left open.”

“To look at her companion,” says Jack. “Have you seen the rest of her?”

A ladder of purple gashes grips the side of her throat. A line of tiny, tight, translucent stitches bisect her body, a ragged line drawn below the dimples of her back. Wide gray fins spread from each hip. The long, sleek body of a shark makes a trench, bending in an arc toward the damp sand.

Will exhales. “Yes. The cuts in her neck look postmortem. You said there’s another body?”

“Look at her mouth.”

Will pushes the tablet off his legs. He flips it closed, turns it face down on the bed. “He pulled out all her teeth.”

“And replaced them with shark teeth. Yes.”

He looks through the screen. Stars burn in the black. In the rippled grass, hanging in the low branches of trees, fireflies blink. The air smells of rain, hot gravel, honeysuckle. “I take it you want to go to Florida.”

“In the morning, if possible.”

He stretches out onto his back and groans. He wipes sweat off his temples. “I still feel like I’m moving.”

“How did it go, by the way?”

He puts an arm over his eyes. “It didn’t. There was nothing. I didn’t…I don’t know, feel anything. The whole trip was a waste.”

“Abigail is doing well.” Jack pauses. “She wants to see you.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Alana…”

Will grits his teeth, lets out a slow breath. “Where were the women found, exactly?”

“Coral Gables.”

“Is there more?”

“A similar victim was found in Texas about three months ago.”

“Okay?”

“By the time she was found, the body had disassembled dues to tides and animal activity. The stitch material was still present, though.”

Will tosses the tablet onto the nightstand. “May I go to bed, please?”

“I’ve got your tickets. Your plane leaves Dulles at 10:15.”

“Of course you do.” He reaches up, turns on a fan. “Of course it does.”

“Good night, Will.”

* * *

 

Lumen struggles not to shake all over. Teeth clenched, staring off into the night, she sits at the table for a long time, the picture on the computer out of focus, her whole life out of focus.

_There’s so much silence out here in the woods. Such quiet._

Her body loses. Surrender comes on a cold wave of sweat. She shudders, cupping her hands over her face. Her skin smells like lightning.

_Why did he talk to me?_

Lumen bites her lip. She looks at the ceiling. “Why? Why?”

_It could be nothing. It could be coincidence._

She folds her arms tight across her chest. Her mouth trembles. “Bullshit,” she whispers.

_I saw you sitting here when I passed you by and thought it would be a good idea to turn around and double check._

She closes her eyes on a vicious sting of tears. The picture in her mind distorts, bends in and out of the day, won’t be stitched down; she sees him in the smeared light, hands out to his sides. Tan shorts. No sunglasses. He shades his face and squints at her, his mouth set. He draws the shades down tight on those unsteady, blue-walled, pit-trap eyes.

_I saw you sitting here._

Her nose fills as she searches her memory for a look, a posture, a step, his hesitation, a single burning word trapped in amber.

_I saw you._

She opens her eyes. Water pools beneath her eyes, crawls down her cheeks. She wipes her nose and sniffs. “What do I do? What the fuck do I do?”

_There was nothing wrong with my car, no four-ways, no popped hood, no list to one side from a flat tire. No orange flags hanging from the windows. No me sitting with the door open, legs out, feet on the pavement, fighting with a phone to get a signal._

“There’s no way,” she whispers.

Lumen gets up, moves toward the fridge; her toes are numb from sitting, her face is on fire, her lungs ache. Her hands moves like an old woman’s on the door, her nails clatter on the handle. She wrenches it open, digs for a hard lemonade. She hates the stuff but it’s ice cold and there’s enough of it for her to forget, if she’s willing, if she wants to.

_Was he following me?_

In a cold swoon, the idea rolls from her head down to her feet. It cuts the cords in her knees, makes her sway. For a moment the kitchen goes gray. Her palms turn clammy. The urge to vomit flutters up the inside of her throat.

“Oh Jesus Christ,” she whimpers.

Her heart throbs triple-time; each beat booms in her chest. She closes the refrigerator and stumble-walks past the table, bottle scraping its surface. She weaves into the living room, one fist shoved into her chest. Her ribs pulsepulsepulse, quick and light, like a hummingbird’s. She collapses onto the couch, doubles over, gasps for breath. The bottle, soaked with condensation, slips out of her hand. It clatters on the floor and rolls away.

_I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do._

Lumen draws in a big jagged breath, shuddering; it’s a sound like birds trapped her mouth.

_I could walk outside right now. Run out into the grass, feel it on my knees, fireflies igniting around me with their barely audible pops and slashing the deep blue. A car rolls up. Maybe not. Maybe it’s just walking, long strides swallowing the shadows between the car and the house. White skin in the moonlight. Eyebrows like the shadow of a falcon’s wings, deep furrows pulling them together. Hello, Lumen. Can we talk?_

She reaches for her purse. She shakes it and her phone slides out into her hand.

_God I hope this number is still active._

She unlocks the screen. The light dims the living room. She flicks through her contacts. She finds what she is looking for and holds her breath, bites her lip.

_Here goes._

It starts to ring. As the rings pile up, she feels a slow sinking in her stomach.

_Shit._

She is pulling the phone away from her ear when there’s a click and a swallow’s length of silence. “Lumen?”

She bursts into sobs.

“Oh Jesus, Lumen…Lumen…I don’t…what? What? What’s going on?”

Her chest cracks. Heat bubbles up, washes through her blood. Tears and snot sizzle on her skin. The world spins in slow-motion and she scrabbles not to slide off. Her bones long to fall, to crumble in on themselves. She gasps in enough air to speak.

“D-Dex, I think…” She gulps, clutching the phone, “I think I-I-I’m…th-that w-we’re…oh shit I think th-there’s trouble,” she whispers, eyes closed.

“Why? What’s happened? What about you? Are you all right?”

“Y-Yes, I’m okay.” She blows through her pursed lips, sucks in a jagged breath. “I’m oh-ho-hokay. There was a m-man. An FBI profiler. He…he st-stuh…” She swallows. “H-he…stopped when I was on the s-side of the road. I had pulled over to m-m-muh…make a phone call, and he stopped.” She bares her teeth against a fresh tight wave of sobs, struggles to hold them back. Her forehead aches. “He stopped so s-s-see if I was…if I…if I n-nuh…”

“Breathe, Lumen.”

She nods, wipes her eyes with her other hand. “He stopped. T-Talked to me.” She wails. “Why did he talk to me?”

“I don’t know. Shhhh. Calm down. Can you do that?”

“I-I-I…”

“Can you try?”

“Yes. Yes. Y-Yuh…Yes, I can try.”

“Good.”

Lumen grabs tissues off the coffee table. She blows her nose. Her breath moves in and out, catches. She forces out a slow exhale. She balls the tissues up, grabs more. She wipes her mouth. “Okay.” She nods. “I think I’m…okay.”

“Good. What did he say? Did he tell you he was an FBI profiler?”

“No, no…it wasn’t like that. I was pulled over, he saw me, pulled up behind me. He got out of the car and asked me if I was all right.” She dabs at her raw, reddened eyes. “There was nothing official about it.”

“How did you even know he was a profiler?”

“I looked up the Minnesota Shrike case.” She sniffles. “I guess he was involved.”

“You recognized him? From his picture?”

“Yeah.”

“Well…” Dexter lets out a long breath. “Unless he approaches you in a more official capacity, I wouldn’t worry about it. You live in Minnesota, you said he was involved in a Minnesota case…it probably had something to do with that, and nothing to do with you. Or me. Trust me, Lumen. These FBI guys have no problems letting you know they’re FBI and that they’re looking into you. He’s got nothing to hide.”

“What if it’s off the books? What if he’s just suspicious? Poking around?”

“Sooner or later he’ll show his true colors.”

“Yeah, that’s the part I don’t like.” Lumen half-laughs, half-weeps. “That sooner or later part.”

“I don’t like it either.”

Lumen leans back into the sofa cushions. She sighs, closes her eyes. “I’ve thought about you a lot lately.”

“I think about you too.”

“How are you?”

“Fine. Things are…fine, I guess. Quiet.”

“Harrison?”

“Growing like a weed.”

She smiles. “Good.”

“So…how have you been? I mean, besides the FBI profiler thing.”

“Perfectly miserable. I hate it. Everything about it…this house, Owen. Home.” Lumen rubs her face. “Nothing fits anymore.”

A moment of silence. “You could leave.”

“I know. I should.” She laughs, one hand over her eyes. “I can’t seem to get a job here anyways.”

“If you do,” says Dexter, placing his words carefully, “let me know, okay?”

“I’ll do that,” she whispers.

* * *

 

Blue light. It comes like lightning, settles. It beats like a heart. He is the fog, curling up from the cold ground, stretching, always reaching.

Each flash cuts him. Each pulse sets his blood running.

To acquire feet is a betrayal. Now grounded in flesh, housed in skin, his toes kiss the ground. His blood returns to liquid. It abandons a life of pure oxygen, curls itself into drops, loses heat. Falls. His blood abandons the atmosphere, trades it in for life on earth.

_No_ , he mutters, hands curling into fists.

He parts the grass with his knees. He pushes long thin branches aside, ducks his head. White mist embraces his legs. In the distance, the house. The windows are made of yellow light.

Blue light. Red light. Purple. It stutters.

A row of hedges divides the back yard. Swarming one side, dozens of people, some with the yellow FBI on the backs of their jackets. The earth is disturbed. Mist creeps over it, winds around the bushes and shrouds their leaves.

Off to one side, a girl silhouette. She’s small, pale, wearing a ragged white dress. Her feet are dirty, her hair parted into a pair of cornsilk braids. She holds the leash of a small black and white dog, maybe a terrier-spaniel mix. It faces the bushes, panting.

She turns around. Blue light flashes across her skin. “Sorry, mister,” she says, her lean face all upturned dark eyes. “It was my dog’s fault, really. I’m sorry. No matter what I just can’t keep him from diggin at things.”

Can’t sounds like _cain’t_. Things sounds like _thangs_. Will reaches out, touches her head. Her scalp is febrile. Her hair is greasy. “It’s okay.”

“No it ain’t.”

The ground is peeled back. Beneath, in the dark crumbly layers of loam, scaled with clay, are long dirty bones. Clothes like rags. Fingers like husks. Teeth like scattered seeds.

Will looks at the girl. She watches him, her hands folded at her waist. “It’s okay,” he says.

Tears well up, sparkle onto her cheeks. They cut through the grime on her skin. “No.” She shakes her head. “I’m old enough to know better. I am.”

Will gets on his knees. The girl sits down too, crosslegged, pulling her dress down over her knobby knees. He sits on his heels. Nods to the dog. “What’s his name?”

“Patches.”

The dog’s ear’s perk up.

His smile is tremulous. “Do you think Patches likes me?”

“I dunno.” She shrugs a shoulder. “Maybe?”

Will leans forward, extends a hand. His skin gleams scarlet past the forearm; dried blood cakes maroon between his fingers and draws black half-moons beneath his fingernails. Red drips off his elbow.

The girl eyeballs the drops. “Don’t that make you feel sick?”

“Nah,” he says, shaking his head. “I have lots to spare.”

“Is it good blood?”

“Yes. It’s good.”

The girl holds out her hand. Three drops fall in her curved palm. She holds them up to her nose, breaks out into a sunny grin. “Mmmmm…roses!”

Patches lurches onto his feet. He inches forward, cringes a little. Will’s fingers bump the dog’s wet nose.

“It ain’t your fault, y’know.” The girl nods to the rectangular hole in the ground, looks at it. A pair of FBI agents lift the pelvis free of the dirt, cradled between them in a sling. “The lady in the ground. I saw him hit her with a brick and then she fell all down on herself like a pile of broken sticks.”

Patches licks Will’s fingers. “Who?”

“The man in the long gray coat. I seen him. Sometimes he runs like a deer on all-fours like. He carries the antlers in his arms. The brick is in the grave.”

Will looks at her face. She looks back, the leash coiled and loose in her lap. Patches moves his head beneath Will’s palm and he scratches, fingers sliding down to the back of the dog’s head. Patches lies down at his knees, turns onto his back. Will strokes his belly.

“You ain’t gonna last,” she says.

Will looks around himself and sees red mud. It reeks of roses, semen, hot iron.

She points. “See?”

One of the agents has a brick in one white-sheathed hand. She holds it up, turns it this way and that. The fitful purple light scatters off it.

“Told you.”

Seagulls screech, their cries rising and falling with distance.

“Now don’t you go in that water. Even good blood gets the blues.” The little girls’ voice starts to fade. “Even blood that doesn’t speak finds its way. Even blood that loves you will enter a shark’s mouth.”

Will stands. It’s dark but the sky is turning pewter in a far-flung, thin line. He looks around. _This is nautical twilight_ , he think. _Cobalt and then pewter, silver, pale yellow. The pearlescent pink that ignites into blood orange_. He hears a soft murmuring, the hush of water meeting sand. Salt fills his nose. He takes a step. Woods-loam crumbles into beach. The mists burn off. Beneath them, a heavy silver ocean like mercury shifts beneath the strengthening sunlight.

Two bodies lie on the flat sand, shark-tails in the waterline. They face one another. Each has eight arms, mirror-posed. Their long blonde hair curls back and away, as though it’s caught in a breeze. White eyes gaze into white eyes. Shark teeth shred bloodless holes where their mouths used to be.

_I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each._

Will squats. Sticks his fingers into the sand. Light creeps up from the water and over the dead faces. Their profiles are so alike they could almost be twins.

He wipes his hands on his boxers. Stands. “Oh, and you _will_ sing to me.”

Will startles awake. He holds his breath, lets it out slowly.

Cut into squares by the window, the white light of a false dawn.

* * *

 

In the dark, Lumen stuffs the last box into her car. She slams the trunk.

_Owen,_  
_I’m sorry. I can’t._  
_I should have stayed gone._  
_Please, take care of yourself._  
_Goodbye._  
_L._


	6. The Florida Border

Lumen passes through Nashville in the middle of the night. Velvet dark blows in through the open windows. Pierced by neon jewels, it weaves the thick scent of mimosa into her clothes.

She pulls into the parking lot of a Motel 6 on the outskirts of town. It’s a low white building, a ghost abandoned in the woods. A big magnolia shades one corner of the lot; the thick green leaves are dark, waxy in the dim light of the streetlamps. The white blossoms float on the boughs; big, round, they are like moons reflected in still water. Their whiteness seems to glow, the thick petals folded back. Faint lemon animal scent sifts down onto the hood of her car. 

Lumen opens the door, swings her legs out. She stretches. When she stands, exhaustion whirls around her and throbs at her temples. She yawns.

A blizzard of moths swirls, draws a widening cone beneath the bright yellow floodlight.

“Thanks.”

“Welcome, honey.”

Lumen smells trees, rain, motor oil. She heaves a sigh. Her eyes are disjointed, grainy, her cheekbones full of lead. The humidity sprawls over her skin. The small hours of the morning murmur around her in a voice of leaves, exhale the low distant whoosh of interstate traffic. Crickets shriek.

She unlocks the door. Pushes it open. She glances around.

Lumen steps in. Flips on the light. The room is cold, full of white noise. Her heartbeat sounds in her ears, muffled, as she turns to close the door. She shuts the heavy drapes. Her skin feels hot. She touches the back of her hand to her forehead, feels the simmering summer sun still trapped inside.

Two beds fill the tiny room. She tosses her purse onto the closest one. She sits down, folds her legs. She sighs and rubs her face. 

“Fuck,” she mutters.

She picks up the remote and turns on the television. The screen lights up in the image of a blow-dried blonde in a pink suit. Her voice fills the room, Southern-strained like honey through the speakers.

Lumen lies down. Her world twitches out of focus.

She rolls over, unzips her purse. Pulls out her phone. She deletes three texts from Owen, erases four of his voicemails. There is a message from her mother but she saves it, sets it aside until morning. She glances at the battery level and turns the phone face-down on her chest. When she closes her eyes, she imagines getting up. She longs for a shower.

Her whole body jerks and when she opens her eyes the blonde is no longer on the television. A choir of voices takes her place, flinging their words toward Baptist heaven. Her breathing settles. The hymn comes apart in her mind, falls back down. It hits her like a steady rain of big floppy flower petals.

“I don’t want this,” she murmurs, turning to her other side.

She sees the preacher man, his white teeth dazzling, his arms open wide. The eyes sparkle like those of a predatory beast. In a sing-song, a chant, he lauds the concept of the sovereign while the positioning of his body declaims himself his prince. He carries the trappings, that smooth wave of hair, suit like a pelt, red lifeless mouth animated by some other force. He sacrifices truth and lets the blood run. Waves of adoration push gently against the stage. They crawl up, kiss his toes.

Lumen gropes for the remote.

_What you are doing now, your erratic flight south: it is what Will Graham would expect of you._

Her mind does not use her own voice. Smoky and deep, its breath is soft as moss on her cheek. The words tumble over themselves, ragged and cold, in a Scandinavian cadence.

_Has he flushed you out of your frosty Minnesota wood like a quail?_

Her eyes open. She pushes a red button on the remote, cuts the sound off.

“No,” she murmurs. “He doesn’t want me. It was a coincidence. I believe that.”

_Are you sure?_

Lumen sees Hannibal in her mind’s eye, he is standing on the deck of his hotel room and dressed in a soft suit the color of thunderclouds. The air around him is dark but for the tie; it is a dark red, cherry, like firelight flickering through a glass of pinot noir.

“No.”

_What will you do?_

Hot tears ooze out of her eyes. She digs the pillow out from beneath the bedspread, buries her face in it.

* * *

Will glances from shadow to shadow. “X-ray them first.”

Conversation drops off, words and half-syllables crashing into each other. Clothes rustle.

“Just…just do it.” He rubs his forehead. Faces turn. He shrugs. “There might be something to see. You never know.” The frigidity of the morgue brings a flush to everyone’s skin and the light, harsh and bleak, hollows out their eyes, lays bare the mottled map of blood beneath. He gestures to the bodies, turns away. “You have to admit that this kind of presentation is…unusual.”

“True that,” says Beverly. “You guys heard him. Come on. Let’s get this done.”

Jack turns his back and takes out his phone, speaks in stage-whispers. The morgue attendants circle around the bodies, take hold of the gurneys. The wheels hiss over the rubber-brick floors. Metal frames squeak, wheels spinning in their casters before aligning themselves with the push. Heavy plastic bags wrap around the torsos and rattle over every seam in the floor. Shark tails, covered with white sheets, jut out over the ends.

Beverly herds Jimmy and Brian out into the hallway. “Lunch?”

“Ooh, yes please. Seafood?”

“You’re gross.”

“Am not. Grouper is delicious. I saw a little place by the hotel.”

“Well, I’m having a sandwich. With ham, or something. You guys can have whatever you want. Will?”

The overhead lights bleach out his train of thought. “Huh?” He looks over his shoulder. “What?”

Beverly peers around the doorframe. “Food time?”

“Uh, yeah.” He wipes his palms on his pants. “Sure. Okay.”

She smiles. “We’ll have the time while they go upstairs and do your x-rays. Jack’s going to babysit the bodies.”

Jack pockets his phone. “Yeah.” He waves a hand. “Go ahead.”

Beverly lifts her eyebrows. She smiles. “I’m so hungry it’s ridiculous.”

Will nods. “Okay. I’m coming.”

“You want me to wait?”

His eyes snap back into focus. He turns away from the autopsy table. Beverly’s still holding the door open. She’s watching him, a faint smirk on her face.

“If you want,” he says. “I’m coming. I’m walking. Now.”

The hallway, painted a bright soothing blue, burns with overbearing Florida sunshine. Will feels it on his skin as they pass tall chrome-treated windows, a heavy weight, its heat displacing the flow of his blood. He takes a breath.

Beverly looks at him, squints in the sun. “How are you doing?”

He filters the exhale through his teeth. “I’m all right. You?”

She shrugs. “Okay, I guess. It’s a weird case.”

“Yeah. That’s a word for it.”

“I keep thinking about mermaid lore.” Thin, lattice shadows from the potted palms fall across her face. “There are hundreds of variations on the legends. I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

“There’s a place to begin, but it’s in this guy’s head.” Will puts his hands in his pockets. He studies the texture of the carpet, the way the crisp shadows interact with it. “He’s taken pieces of the legends and cobbled together his own meanings.”

“What do you think?”

Will looks up, pushes open a heavy blondewood door. They step into a windowless hallway. Dim and fitful, the change in light plants dull seeds of pain behind his eyes. He squeezes his temples. Refrigerated air blasts him in the face.

“He’s got a boat big enough to do his work.” The cold settles around his neck. “This guy’s an expert fisherman. He’s got…dedication to it, it’s a lifestyle, an artform, practically a religion—it takes him days to find the right fish, long days, sunup to sundown.” He shivers. “He takes the women first. I’m not sure how important they are to the tableau, beyond the fact that they look a certain way: blonde, like these women were, or long-haired. Not too big or too small.” He glances at her. “Have the women been identified yet?”

“Yeah.” Beverly takes a notepad out of her lab coat pocket. “I think so.” She flips through the handwritten pages. “Yeah. Let’s see. Jessica Flynn, age 23, she’s a student from Ft. Lauderdale; the other woman is Carolyn Fletcher, age 24. She worked at Disney World in Orlando. She was down here visiting a friend.”

“Are they locals?” Will turns his head, eyeing a watercolor painting of pelicans. “Natives?”

“I think Jessica was. I’m not sure about Carolyn.”

“He goes out, finds his woman—or in this case women—and he keeps them somewhere. He has to. He feeds them, keeps them…healthy? He doesn’t torture them, though, at least not above the waist.” Will snorts, grimaces as he emphasizes each word. “After all, he doesn’t want to ruin the canvas.”

Beverly shakes her head. She folds her arms. “Gross.”

“Then, he goes out onto the water. Matching woman to fish is a precise art. This guy, he has a lifelong relationship with the sea. He’s one of these guys who can smell a storm when it’s still two hundred miles out and can tell by the color of the water which fish will be running and which ones won’t. He’s probably a native Floridian, or he comes from some other region of the Gulf coast.”

“Why the boat? Couldn’t he do the assembly in his basement, or whatever?”

“Handling a fish of that size takes equipment. Cleaning up after the all the butchery would be far easier on a boat. It’s probably commercial fishing size, with all the cranes, pulleys, deck space he could ever need.”

Beverly shudders. “Any thought I might have had about going out on the water is presto-magic gone.”

Will halts, pulls his phone out of his pocket. “Jack wants to know if we’ll pick him up a Cubano.”

“Only if we are grabbing one for ourselves, yum. That sounds great!”

He shrugs, puts his phone away. “Whatever you want is fine.” He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter to me.”

“Now we just have to find a local sandwich shop.”

“I am sure there’s an app for that.”

“Fuck that! I’ll just ask someone who works here.”

They walk into the glass lobby and Beverly strides up to the front desk, where old-lady volunteers in turquoise vests stand and smile. Will takes refuge beneath the wide waxy leaves of a potted peace lily. He studies the walls; they’re white stucco, set with shells and bits of broken tile. The shards pick up the relentless sunlight, flash back macaw colors. Overhead, someone pages someone else, a deep male voice echoing through the vaulted ceiling. Will touches the shell shapes, murmurs their names in his mind: _cantharus, cockle, conch, coquina. Kitten’s paw. Olive, murex. Angel wings. Whelk._ His lips move. He traces the outline of each one.

“Got a lead on the sandwiches,” says Beverly, walking over to him, holding up her notepad. “What are you doing?”

“All the shells used in the wall are native.” He shrugs. “I just…I thought it was a nice touch.”

Beverly looks around. “I guess.”

“It’s the kind of thing our guy would notice.” Will puts his hands in his pockets, studies the wall. “He would know all their names. He would…approve.”

“Creepy.”

“Sorry.”

“Come on. Let’s go.”

* * *

The next morning, her hair wet, Lumen walks out into the parking lot of the Motel 6. She steps beneath the magnolia, pushes herself up on her toes. She cuts a blossom off the tree with a tiny folding knife.  


She goes back into the room one last time and rinses out an empty plastic McDonald’s cup. She fills it to the brim with water. Gently, she floats the big white flower on top. 

In the car, she snugs the cup down into the central holder. 

She takes out her phone. Bites her lip.

_[Me: If your life ever takes you to Miami, look me up. I know the perfect place for breakfast.]_

* * *

“Would you go out on the water with me?”

Beverly looks up, startled. The wind pushes her hair into her face and she hooks it behind her ears. “What?”

They sit together in the shade of a deep pink umbrella, around a small white glass-topped table. A vinyl tablecloth flutters, held down by condiments and a napkin dispenser. The sky hangs overhead, deep and blue, puffed with bits of bright cloud. The constant traffic noise bends and dips in the breeze. The air smells of tidal sand, hot pavement, frangipani, vinegar, and roasting pork.

“Out on the salt. Fishing.” Will studies his half-eaten sandwich. “Would you go out in a boat with me?”

“Yeah, sure! I mean…probably, yeah. Of course I would trust you.” She grins, picks up her sandwich. “I don’t know.” She shakes her head. She lifts the sandwich to her mouth. “I’ve never been out on the ocean before.”

“I grew up in Louisiana.” Will hunches his shoulders. “Then later we moved to Biloxi. Stayed there awhile.” He concentrates, teasing a thin slice of pickle out of his sandwich. Grains of mustard cling to his fingertips. “I used to fish with my dad, sea fishing, as a kid. We’d head out before dawn and…” He pauses, eyes tracking the soaring flight of a bird. “And by the time the sky was silver we’d be out of sight of land.” He glances at her as he pops the pickle in his mouth. “Every time, until I was like, twelve or so,” he says, chewing, “he’d point at that silvering in the sky, and then he would explain to me all the differences in twilight.”

Beverly’s eyebrows twitch. “Differences?”

He pushes his chair back, holds up his hand. “Yeah. You see, there’s civil twilight.” He tilts his fingertips toward the tabletop. “That’s when the geometric center of the sun is six degrees below the horizon—from that time, until proper sunrise. Or sunset. It’s when there’s still enough light in the sky to easily see distinguishing features of the land, individual things like houses and trees and cars and…and dogs,” he says, flashing a brief grin. “Then you have nautical twilight, which happens when the sun is twelve degrees below the horizon. We’d call it first light, or false dawn, or nightfall. It lasts until you can’t navigate by sight on the water.” He picks up his sandwich. “Then there’s astronomical twilight, which has to do with whether or not sixth-degree stars are visible to the naked eye.” He props his elbows on the table, takes a bite. “But to most people, those with untrained eyes, it just looks pretty much like full dark.”

She sits back. “Wow. I guess it’s true.”

“What?” He chews, swallows. “What’s true?”

She leans forward to take a suck off her straw. “You learn something new every day.”

“You’re making fun of me.”

“No, no. I’m being serious.”

“So you’re seriously making fun of me.”

“No!” She picks up a potato chip. “Stop.” She points at him with it. “Stop it.”

“I’d like to go out while we’re here but I doubt there will be time for it. Out on the water, I mean.” Palms rattle in the ebb and flow of the wind; fronds cast sweeping shadows across the white concrete. He watches them. “I haven’t been in awhile. A couple years.”

“You’ve fished here before?”

“Out of the Keys, yeah.” He pops a chip into his mouth. “It’s some of the best sport fishing in the world.”

Beverly blots her forehead with a napkin. “Holy fuck it’s hot out here. Florida in the summer. Jesus. Whose great idea was that?”

Will takes a drink. He looks around. “It’s not too bad in the shade, with the wind.”

“Speak for yourself.” Beverly waves a hand in front of her face. “My coddled, air-conditioned blood has other ideas.”

“I loathe air-conditioning.” He wipes his mouth. “Because no matter how well you maintain it, or how often you’re able to turn it off, your house always ends up smelling like canned mold.”

“I think air conditioning is what makes life bearable in this part of the world.”

“Maybe.” He takes a bite. “It’s warm out here.”

Beverly wipes her hands and gets up, walks to the counter. She carries her drink with her. Fat drops of condensation slide off the waxed paper, darken the bricks. Will listens to her voice as he looks out across the street, through an esplanade planted with yellow hibiscus and royal Poinciana trees. The pavement beneath is scattered with patches of flame-colored petals, scarlet stains smeared by heavy rain into the white curbs. She chats with the guy at the counter about the weather, then orders a third sandwich wrapped to go.

A sudden fluttering and chattering snags his attention. Magpies land beside his feet. Their black-and-white feathers gleam, the white patches bright, long jaunty tails scintillating blue-black in the sunlight. He gins a little, watches them hop along the bricks. They snap up crumbs, spread their wings, tussle with each other. He chuckles.

Beverly turns, walks back toward the table. He squints up at her. “We have friends.”

“Nuisance birds.” She glances down, moves her hair back over her shoulders. “People probably feed them.”

“I was thinking about it.”

“Don’t.” Beverly sits, crosses her legs. She jabs at the ice in her drink with her straw. “The owners will probably chase us away if you do.”

Will plucks a chip off his plate. He looks down, leans over. Three of them dart toward his lowered hand and tear it out of his fingers. He laughs.

“Don’t encourage them!” Beverly grins, nudges his foot with her own. She looks around. “We’ll get in trouble. Don’t you go and get me in trouble, Graham.”

“They’re really smart,” he says. “Magpies are some of the smartest birds in the world. It doesn’t matter whether I feed them or not.” He tosses down another chip. “They’re got the brains to figure out how to get what they want. I bet they steal right from the counter all the time.”

Beverly slides on a pair of sunglasses. “This is me, shielding my eyes from your bullshit.”

“It’s not bullshit.” He looks back and forth at his face, reflected in her lenses. “They really are that smart.”

“Yeah.” She leans back, folds her arms. “I would go out on a boat with you.”

He smiles. “Good.”

Beverly’s phone goes off. She digs it out of her purse. “Jackpot.”

Will takes a drink. “What?”

“The x-rays show that he severed the victims’ feet at the ankles and stuffed them inside the sharks’ stomachs.”

Will sighs.

* * *

Lumen pulls over on a long straight highway flanked with spindly Georgia pines. The sun hangs low and florid in the layers of clouds, burns through them and kindles the light into a gilded shade of orange. It lies on her hands, burnishes her arms. It casts long spindly shadows across her face.

Cars flash by on gusts of speed. Her car shudders and rocks with the velocity as she leans over the passenger seat.

She fishes out her phone. She dials. With the phone pressed to her ear, she stares at a big blue sign.

“Lumen? Is everything okay?”

“Dex…I’m…” She swallows. She squints at the white lettering. “I-I’m at the Florida border.”

“I’ll see you tonight, then?”

She lets out a huge sigh and smiles a tremulous smile. “Yes…yes.”


	7. The Lighthouse Keeper

Lumen kills the engine. She sits for a moment, eyes closed, listening to the shrill of insects wound up tight by the humidity, muffled traffic sounds, the quiet murmur of the bay, rattling tall palm fronds. She opens the door, swings her legs out. She opens her eyes, leans back. She looks up. The sky overhead is dark, cloudy, sweet as overripe plums.

_I’m so tired. Have I ever been this tired?_

She struggles, the memories wet with sweat and stinking like men and blood and hot wood and she gulps in air, wrestles them down.

_Yes._

Lumen grabs a big backpack out of the passenger seat. She swings it down onto the wet pavement, shoves it out from the car; it scrapes the ground hard enough to echo off the surrounding high-rise walls. Breathing hard, she leans over to pick her purse up off the floor. For a sharp, vertiginous clutch of seconds she feels like she’s going to keep falling forward, ass over teakettle, into the black. She pulls the purse into her lap, wills her heart to slow. She presses the heels of her hands into her temples, slumps into the seat. She takes a deep breath of cut grass, ocean, a faint sweet salty whiff of nearby gardenia.

She closes her eyes, rubbing the sweat off her face. “I still feel like I’m moving,” she murmurs. “Fuck.”

_You don’t think about those things anymore. Do you, Number Thirteen?_

Lumen draws in a ragged breath.

_I am not a number. I never was. I am Lumen Ann Pierce, I was always Lumen Ann Pierce. I always will be. No one will ever do those things to me again._

“They won’t happen to anyone else, either.” She exhales. “Not like that. Not by them.” She presses her lips into a tight line. “I took care of it. We took care of it.”

She turns her legs out, sets her feet on the ground. She leans over, lets her head hang between her knees.

_Smell the breath of the ocean, then. Know that the living scents of those men reside in her throat, their bones ground to dust in her mighty belly._

Lumen takes a deep breath.

_No more will they trouble you, or anyone else. The sharks have eaten both their hearts and their balls._

She picks up the bag and stands. She loops her purse over her shoulder. She looks toward the long, low shape of Dexter’s apartment building. In the dark, the blinds have filleted yellow light into thin slices. A warm breeze, laden with rain, blows in off the bay. It wraps itself around her. It plays with the ends of her hair.

She slams the door shut, presses the clicker on her keychain. The horn beeps. The headlights flash.

She strides toward the white gate, pushes through it. Up the spiral stairs to the second floor. White walkways float on the dark grass. She feels exposed by the broad swath of lawn, the white concrete glowing by the property lights. At the far end of the building, at the corner, the windows glow white. Set against the purple sky and the shifting glitter of the bay, his apartment feels like a boat moored on the calm. It blazes against the midnight dark; for her, it is a lighthouse, a beacon.

With his lantern, the keeper calls her home.

Lumen comes to the door. Bites her lip. She hears him through the windows, the movement of his body. She knocks just as his footfalls quit.

Dexter opens the door. He stands there, framed by a bright spill of light. He’s barefoot, dressed in khakis; they’re bleached and softened with wear into a shade of cream. His cheeks are smooth. His shirt is light green, thin cotton. The sleeves are rolled up. His top two buttons are undone.

A slight puff of wind hits her back. She smiles. “Hi.”

His hand curls around the doorjamb. He smiles back. “Hi.”

“Here I am.” She mocks a little curtsy. “I made it.”

“Yeah.” He steps aside. “Come in. You’re tired.”

“Yeah.” She walks past him, dropping the backpack next to the kitchen counter. “I am.” She laughs. “I’m so tired I’m dizzy.”

Dexter closes the door. “Have you eaten?”

“Yeah, but not since Georgia.”

He moves into the kitchen. “I’ll make you something.” He points a finger at her. “Don’t argue with me.”

Lumen looks around at the slate gray walls, the white ceiling, the blondewood floors all awash in spills of rich golden light. “Okay.” She plops down on the couch. She toes off her sandals. “I won’t.”

“Eggs and toast?”

“Sure, sounds good.”

“OJ?”

She folds her legs Indian style. “Yes, definitely.” The coffee table is cluttered with colored plastic blocks. “Where’s Harrison?”

“He’s asleep,” says Dexter. “Hopefully, he’ll stay that way until morning.”

“I’ll be quiet.”

“No, it’s not you.” Dexter takes a frying pan out of the cabinet and places it on the stove. “He’s getting over an ear infection.” He opens the fridge. “He’s been fussier than usual.”

“Aw.” Lumen frowns. “Poor little guy.”

“Oh, he’s recovering. Just not when he’s asleep.”

Lumen moves onto her side. She pulls a pillow beneath her cheek, looks at the floor. The tall windows cast thin, distorted, pale shapes across the wood. The quality of the outdoor light is dirty, indistinct. The crisp shadows of palm fronds bob and sweep through them. “I’ll be extra quiet. I promise.”

“Don’t you fall asleep on me. I’ve got eggs here.”

She smirks a little and sticks out her tongue. “I won’t!”

He walks in, sets a glass of orange juice on the coffee table. She reaches for it.

“I bought those oranges this morning.”

She looks up, grins. “From a man standing on the median?”

“Yeah, actually.”

She props herself up and takes a sip. “It’s good.”

“Fresh-squeezed,” he says. “As always.”

“Yeah. I almost forgot about that.” Lumen sits up, looks into the glass. “The fresh-squeezed juice.” She takes another sip. “It’s always so much better than the stuff in the carton.”

“Absolutely.”

Lumen cradles the glass in laced fingers. “Look, Dex…I don’t want to keep you up. I know you have to work in the morning, so when you’re done I can just…crash. Right here.” She pats the couch. “We can talk more about this tomorrow, when you get home.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. I think so. I mean…yeah, Owen’s pissed at me, he keeps calling, he says he wants to talk.” She moves hair out of her face. “But that’s to be expected. Now he’s roped my folks into it too. I’ve got, like, six messages, all from varying family members.”

“Are you going to talk to him?”

“No! There’s nothing to talk about.” She drinks down the rest of her orange juice. “Nothing. He knows how unhappy I’ve been.” She looks into the glass, shakes her head. “We fight all the time, about everything. If he’s truly shocked, he’s just dumb.” She sighs. “He probably feels like he’s supposed to be shocked. So he’ll keep trying. Then, he’ll show up here, and then it will be all big stupid romantic gestures. Maybe he’ll even dragoon my mom into it. My sister. My aunts. Everything with him, with them, is like this. It’s always like this. It’s all just a big stupid orchestrated dance.”

Dexter arches an eyebrow. “A tale full of sound and fury, signifying nothing?”

She sighs. “Yeah. Billy Shakespeare said it best. I am so tired of it.”

Dexter scoops the eggs out of the pan. “I don’t blame you.”

“So…no, I am not going to talk to him, to answer the question. I will text my mom and tell her that I’ll talk to her, but only if she’s not going to go on and on about Owen and Miami and how much I ruined my life the first time I came here.”

Dexter butters the toast and slices it into triangles. He plates the eggs, arranges the toast around them, grabs the Tabasco out of the fridge. “More juice?”

“Yeah, that would be great,” she says. “Thanks.”

He places the food and the sauce on the coffee table, plucks the empty glass out of her hands. “Not a problem.”

“I’m so hungry,” she says, shaking Tabasco onto her eggs. “Oh my God. This smells so delicious. Eggs have never smelled so delicious.”

Dexter chuckles.

“No, seriously. You don’t understand.” She gestures with her fork. “I am going to die of deliciousness.”

He loads the orange press. “I think you’ll probably make it.”

“It’s really yummy.”

He finishes with the juice and carries the glass into the living room. “Here.”

“Thank you.” She puts down her fork. “Seriously, thank you so much.” She looks at him. “For everything.”

He sits beside her and folds his hands between his knees. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too. I…I never should have left.” She looks away from him, at the rug, at the bottles standing on top of the bookshelf. Light from the windows passes through them, ripples into shades of blue. She starts to sniffle. She wipes at her eyes. “It was a huge mistake.”

“Shhhh.” He rubs her arm. “Eat.”

Lumen forks the eggs into her mouth. Her chin trembles. She puts the fork down and starts to weep.

“It’s okay.” Dexter puts his arm around her shoulders. “I’ve got you.”

She covers her face with her hands.

He turns, gathers her into his arms. She leans her face into his neck, wraps one arm around his waist. He rests his chin on top of her head. Her body trembles.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs into her hair, running one hand over its tousled length. “I’m here. It’s okay.” He rubs her back. “We’ll take care of it,” he whispers.

She nods, reaches up. The backs of her fingers graze his cheek. He runs a hand down the back of her wrist, caresses the length of her forearm. Her palm settles on his cheek. He presses her hand to his face.

She twists around in his arms. Her eyes are wide, wet. Her mouth feels raw. “Kiss me,” she whispers.

He brushes hair away from her forehead. He lowers his voice. “You don’t have to do this.”

“I know.” She shifts her weight, straddles his lap. She moves her hair away from his face. “I want to.”

He cups her face. “Wait.”

“What?” She searches his eyes. “Why?”

“There’s…” He sighs. His eyes close. “There’s something you should know first, before…before anything like this.”

“What is it?” Lumen sits back. She climbs off him. “Is something wrong?”

“I wasn’t going to tell you until…until after you’d eaten, and settled." He measures his words, tracking her face with his eyes. “I’m not gonna lie; I should’ve said something when you came in.”

She stands in front of him. She shifts her weight from foot to foot, folds her arms. “What the hell is going on?”

“There’s an open case in Coral Gables.” He pauses. “It hasn’t broken yet, which is why you haven’t heard anything. It’s not on the radio, or TV. Yesterday, a couple of girls were found on the beach with fishtails sewn to their waists.” He waves his hands. “You know, like…like mermaids, or selkies, or something. Anyway, it’s been linked to another case in Corpus Christi, so now it’s being investigated as a serial.” He looks in her eyes. “There’s some…ah…FBI involvement.”

She puts her hands on her hips. Her eyebrows go up. “What?”

“Yeah.” He hooks a thumb over his shoulder, points at the window. “So, um…what I’m saying is this: your man Graham?"

She backs away, her mouth dropping open.

"He’s in a hotel, about fifteen miles away from here.”

She tosses up her hands. “Great. Everyone knows but me. Typical.” She lets out a sharp little sigh. “When did you know?”

“This morning. All the Florida coastal jurisdictions got an email.”

“And why the fuck didn’t you tell me?”

Dexter glances toward the bedroom. “Would you keep your voice down?”

“Yes,” she shakes a finger at him, “but only for Harrison, because right now I don’t give a shit about you…your feelings,” she sputters, “about how loud I am!”

“Okay. Okay.” He holds up his hands. “You’re right.” He makes calming gestures. “Yeah, I should’ve told you. I agree. But while we’re on the subject, Lumen, if you had told me you were coming here, I would have. I didn’t even know you were on your way until you called me from the Georgia-Florida state line. I could’ve told you when you called me, yeah, but I didn’t want you getting all freaked out and pissed off and then getting back on the road. Even if you had decided to go home, it’s a really long fucking drive back to Minneapolis!”

“Shit!” She looks to the ceiling. Her mouth trembles. “Shit, shit, shitshitshit.” She curls her hands into fists. “Motherfucking SHIT!”

“Shhhh, keep it down! Sleeping baby.” Dexter gestures toward the bedroom. His eyebrows lift. “Remember him?”

“Yes, yes,” she flaps her hands around her face, “I remember him. I’ll be quiet.” She covers her mouth with both hands, releases a deep breath through her nose. “I really wish you’d told me, though.”

“I wish I had too.”

Lumen fidgets. She strides to the window, hugs herself, looks out through the slats. Beyond the weak orange floodlights the surface of the bay shifts, black and flat, beneath a purple sky. Black palm fronds wave in the wind.

“I don’t want to go home.” She tightens her jaw, shakes her head. “It isn’t home; it hasn’t been. Not since…not since everything that happened to me here.” She looks back over her shoulder. “You don’t come out the other side of that and stay the same.”

Dexter watches her. “No.”

“So that’s out of the question.” She turns. “I’m not going back.” She clutches her upper arms, sticks out her chin. “Will Graham can go fuck himself.”

“Stay out of his way, he’ll probably stay out of yours.”

“Yeah.” Her body sags. She rubs her face. “Let’s hope so.”

“It will be fine. So will you, once you’ve had some sleep. You should go to bed.” He stands, moves toward her. He gestures at the bedroom. “I’ll let you have the bed for tonight. I’ll sleep out here.”

“No, no.” She walks to him, puts her hands on his arms. “I’m not going to put you out of your bed.” She grips his shoulders, shakes him a little. “That’s silly. And unnecessary.”

“It’ll work out better this way.” He takes her hands. “I’ll just bring Harrison out here, super quiet, on tiptoe.” He swings them, gently, to the rhythm of his words. “I’ll take the couch. He and I will get up in the morning, and we’ll get ready for the day. Without waking you. I’ll just close the bedroom door.” He grins. “You won’t hear a thing.”

She lets go of his hands. “If you’re sure.”

“You need at least ten hours of sleep. Come here.” He opens his arms. “Come on. Look at you. You’re exhausted.”

Lumen sighs. She steps into them, closes her eyes. He hugs her tight. She rests her cheek on his shoulder and smells fabric softener, trapped body heat, a trace of shaving cream.

She puts her arms around his neck. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs.

“For what?”

She shakes her head. “Losing it, I guess. I don’t know. I’m so tired.” She chuckles, smoothing her hair back. “I feel like I was born in the car.”

He steps back, looks at her. He pauses. “Okay.” He goes to the kitchen, picks up her backpack. He flashes a brief smile. “Then let’s get you to bed.”

She watches him. “Okay.”

Dexter carries the backpack into his bedroom door. He opens it, slips inside.

_In these rooms, there is love of another kind. Or…there was. Once upon a time._

Lumen looks around. The apartment seems smaller; it’s so modern compared to Owen’s house built in the heart of the woods. Here, there is so much light. It is built to catch the sun, slice it, spread it across the floor like bloody meat on a platter. It is made to hold the light, compartmentalize it. Here everything is sharp, stark. There’s so much contrast. Such pointed corners. The walls, slate blue, slate gray, hold themselves cool against her heart.

_Owen’s was a house built of hope and ignorance. This is a house built of blades._

Dexter carries Harrison out. The child is fast asleep, his limbs heavy with it, a pile of cornsilk hair twisted into dream-nests. Lumen watches Dexter carry Harrison to the couch, where he moves with a ponderous grace like clouds unfolding across the sky. Gentle as rain, he places his son on the cushions. He goes back, wrestles out Harrison’s pack n’ play, carries it held aloft into the living room. “Go ahead,” he whispers as he walks by, “I’m all set.”

Lumen watches him. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, yeah.” He rearranges the blanket, gathers Harrison up. “Go to sleep, Lumen.”

She retreats to the bedroom. The shape of it, the way it lies beneath its shadows, makes her mouth soft, her body tender and unmoored. It is neat as she remembers, the bed made, the walls spare, a single picture of father and son in a black frame on the nightstand. She closes the door. She inhales, smells the ghost left behind by his skin, his sweat; it is a fingerprint made up of lime and stone, grass, marigolds, sun, wood, a faint bitter trace like astringent herbs.

It rises up, draws closer to her with each step. It lies against her skin like a straight razor or a heated whisper.

_Like an animal’s den. Or a nest._

She pulls off her shirt. She digs a nightgown out of her backpack, loops it over her head, lets the thin cotton fall down around her knees. When she takes off her shorts she blushes, it is a sudden bloom of dizzy heat that brings a light breathy sheen of sweat to her face, her neck, the tops of her breasts. She fans her face as she peels back the bedclothes.

_You’re so tired. So tired. The food is hitting your system. That’s all it is._

She climbs into bed. Turns off the lamp. Weak light slips under the door, spreads in a fan across the floor. Slats of light lie diagonally across the bedspread. She turns her back to the window, pulls the pillow down under her chin. She closes her eyes.

In the black, her bones are effervescent. Her tendons quiver, sing like violin strings. The blood rises into her skin and gallops through it, driving gooseflesh ahead of it like a wind.

_Settle, Lumen. You’re tired. Let it take over. Just…just hand over the reins._

Her lips move in the striped shadows, draw the outlines of the words: Like a nest.

The backdrop of her mind builds a picture of the Minnesota Shrike’s nest, a long room like a maw with a smear of blood at the back of its throat.

_A little taste...just a touch…blood on the brink of being swallowed._

She squirms.


	8. Sway

Though the four walls of his hotel room are white and smooth, the paint spread like silk atop the drywall, when Will looks at them, he sees the shapes of shells.

When he looks _into_ them.

The constant hum of the air conditioning, its rises and falls, the buried oscillations, creeps beneath his skin. It dulls the sound of his own breath. It sharpens his skin, makes his teeth shimmy together.

_Whelk._

_Cantharus._

_Kitten's paw._

This susurrus of air, its steady flow and the way the walls make it curl in upon itself, makes him think of the sea.

He closes his eyes.

_I sleep in the dark. In the dark that isn’t dark, in the dark that is illuminated by the spare light of the stars. Only when the stars are looking may I sleep. This. This is when I sleep. This, for how long. I am troubled out of dreams by the first hint of sunlight._

_My bed is small. It is long, but narrow._

_I board the boat while it is still dark. The line of the horizon is blue. The water is black._

“Olive,” Will mutters. “Murex.”

_The sun comes. It pulls itself up through the bright vapors. It sheds the seven veils of the seven seas, tosses them aside so that it might pour the full measure of its heat across the world._

_The sun’s light may touch me while I am on the water, but only then. I must be off the land when it comes._

Will opens his eyes. He sighs. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

His phone buzzes. He rubs his eyes, turns his head. He lifts up his phone. He squints at the brightness of the screen.

_[Bev: You ok up there?]_

He picks the phone up off the nightstand, holds it between his face and the ceiling. 

_[Me: I’m O.K.]_

_[Bev: You need anything?]_

_[Me: No.]_

_[Bev: Sure?]_

_[Me: Yeah.]_

_[Bev: Jim + Bri are out hunting the wild sashimi.]_

_[Me: No interest.]_

_[Bev: K. Just checking. Did you call Dr. L?]_

_[Me: No.]_

_[Bev: Jack’s gonna spank you.]_

_[Me: I know.]_

_[Bev: Night, Will.]_

_[Me: Night, Bev.]_

He turns the phone face down.

“Coquina.” He looks at the ceiling. “Angel wings.”

He sits up, swings his legs over the edge of the bed. He takes a crumpled t-shirt off the floor. He yanks it on.

_I must be off the land._

_I must be off._

He stands, hops one-footed into his shorts. He grabs his keys off the nightstand. He goes still, looks into the blank face of the television.

_I must be._

_I must._

“I don’t sleep in the dark,” he mutters. “Not always.” He rubs his face. “Not today.”

The hall carpet is plush, soft on the soles of his feet. The light fixtures are islands, pouring hot yellow light into the shadows. It chases them into the corners, under the doors.

The air outside is heavy, wet, it carries the limp remains of the day’s heat. The sky is moody as a bruise. A wind drops out of it, plows through the palms. A brief scatter of fat warm raindrops rattles across the pavement, strikes the hood of his car. It slaps the side of his face. 

He gets into the car. Starts the engine. He rolls the windows down and wind gushes in, smelling of salt and rot, lightning, mangrove flats.

_I am off the land beneath the light of the sun. The land tells all my secrets. The water hides them. She is like a mother. She will take anything. She will give anything._

He backs out of the parking space.

The road is long, straight, the esplanade is crowded with greenery turned black in the orange sodium vapor lamps. Yellow flowers appear and disappear in the flash of his headlights.

_Motor oil_ , he thinks, sniffling. He wipes his nose, glances at the back of his hand. _Exhaust and night-blooming jasmine._

“The feet,” he says. “Why does he cut off the feet?”

_Here is the water, it lies broad and flat beneath the moon, laid out on the sand in foaming slices and embedded with splintered light. This water, it whispers, murmuring words drawn up out of the depths—syllables exploding, weakened by the ascent to the surface: entreaties cast out of the water and made foam. The water swoons, languid against the shoreline, rolling itself open. It sprawls beneath the deep black gaze of the sky._

__

The long white limbs of a woman rise up out of the broken light, her hair a wave, her white face crowned with sand. Water gleams on her skin, wraps her in fine silver ribbons. Each spinning turn of her hands casts shells along the tide line. 

Will’s hands twitch.

_Strains of music filter up through into the air, dragging beneath the weight of the water. The sea pulls the notes out of shape, drags its Latin rhythm. It dips and sways, a heavy wet red hibiscus in the dark. She dances, a silver flame skipping across the sand. Whirling, bending, hair a long golden veil swirling, her body writes hieroglyphics across the dark. Her footprints fill with puddles of blood._

Will jerks. For a cold sharp moment he’s blind, his breathing quickens and he looks around, feels for the steering wheel. The wind rams into the car, tosses his hair. It clears the shadows from his eyes. First the shapes of shrubbery pull themselves out of the gloom and then the jersey barriers, white in the purple light. He looks up and sees a beach, pale and flat.

His heart strikes his breastbone. It booms, he shivers, the taste of metal blooming on his tongue.

He grabs the wheel, looks around. His breath comes quick and soft and irregular. The city lights recede, leaving this curve of land to the sea. 

“Where the hell am I?” He feels around for his phone. “Shit.” He turns on the car. The GPS screen blinks, fills with light. His eyebrows lift. “Fuck.”

He turns the car off. When he opens the door the wind covers his chest, pushes him. He slams the door shut. He stands on warm smooth pavement. He leans into the wind, digging his bare toes into its thin layer of sand.  


A path beckons. He puts his hands in his pockets. He starts to walk. He winces at each loose pebble, every sliver of shell, the broken end of each twig pressing into the bottoms of his feet.

_Every step she took was as the witch had said it would be; she felt as if treading upon the points of needles or sharp knives._

Will halts. He looks up at the sky. 

“He’s saving them.” The low-flying clouds race, tatter apart beneath the constant breath of the sea. “When he takes the feet, he’s taking away the pain. It’s not a mutilation. It’s a…a cure.”

_When all the household were asleep, she would go and sit on the broad marble steps; for it eased her burning feet to bathe them in the cold sea-water. And then she thought of all those below in the deep._

“He’s returning them to the sea.” Will looks down the path. “He’s taking them home.”

He moves down onto the beach. Upon it he is laid bare to the wind; it blows up over him, crashes through his hair. The sand is cool. The odor of the tide line is strong, fermented, crusted with salt. 

“Let us go then, you and I,” he whispers, holding his face up into the wind. “When the evening is spread out against the sky.” He closes his eyes. “Like a patient etherized upon a table.”

_Long white arms, pale fingers arched. Her skin turns grey by the sky, the torrents of dirty purple light falling upon it, long flowing hair burnished at the tips by a weak neon kiss. Her feet weave out a familiar pattern. The wind makes a body for her, gives her fingertips a secret skin to caress, the sharp angles of her knees a reason to go soft._

His shoulders jerk. His eyes fly open. With an explosive exhalation he looks down. He’s swathed in sweat, shaking, cold and slick beneath his clothes. Far away, distorted by the wind, he hears the broken notes of beach bar music, lyrics of a smoky-throated woman warbling across the water:

_…like a lazy ocean hugs the shore_

_Hold me close_

_Sway me more…_

He presses the heels of his hands into his temples until the pulse of blood gets too tight. He lets out a long slow breath, scrubs the oily wet off his hairline.

The music is still there. It’s florid, bloody, it plops into his ears, words like chunks of flesh. It moves into his blood, surges into flame. It lightens his head with hot fumes.

_The dancer loses her balance. She pirouettes, her grace leaving her, sprawls facedown into the shallow water. Her hands tremble beside her white face, small broken birds. Her eyes, long and black, deadening, stare at the jetty. Her mouth, like the first notes of false dawn, opens and closes and opens and closes._

His breath breaks apart, runs aground on the back of his throat. He pulls off his shirt, tosses it up onto the dry sand. He strips off the shorts.

_The ladder of bloodless gashes in her long neck flexes, pulses, flutters her long gray shark’s tail grows feeble beneath its weight, fins quivering, smothered by the air._

He runs into the water. With each slash of his ankles, his hands, it splashes white, falls back in curds of foam. He breaks the surface with his belly and the water falls back, kindles into blue stars. He drops to his knees. The water rises up around his face, swirls through his hair. It seals the drumming thunder of his heartbeat deep into his ears.

He pushes back to his feet. He breaks the surface and the wind cuts through the beads of water on his skin. He shakes his head. He wipes his face.

“Cold,” he mutters.

A high-pitched squeak nearly drowns in the waves.

Will lowers his arms. “Do I…do I hear something?”

A wet scuffle, two or three frantic overlapping chirps, one long disconsolate howl.

“Are you kittens?” He keeps an ear turned toward the jetty. “Because you sure sound like kittens.”

Nothing.

He listens to the wind. He makes a smooching noise. “Kitty,” he calls out. “Are you there, sweetheart?”

The squeaks start back up again, two distinct pitches of them. He splashes his way closer to the rocks and first one pair of eyes, then the other, flash at him like pale green mirrors.

“Oh goodness,” he says, groping his way past submerged rocks, “look at this. There are two of you.”

One of them scuttles along the spine of a wet rock, tail standing straight. It looks at him, lets out a piercing meow.

“Okay, okay, I see you.” Will holds out his hand. “I see you. You’re stranded up there. I get it.” 

A soft nose bumps his fingertips. A raspy tongue licks at his nail.

“I can barely see you.” He strokes the tiny chin. “You must be black.”

The other stumbles over, sniffs at his wrist. The whiskers tickle. It bumps its head into his arm.

Will chuckles. “Hello.”

He reaches up, eases a hand beneath one of them. He cups the belly, lifts the little body off the rock. The kitten is wet, it squirms a little, legs splaying as he brings it in close to his body. Will holds it against his shoulder. The kitten curls up between his chest and his palm, starts to shiver.

“Now, I’ve got to get your friend too.” He turns sideways, takes a step, walks his hand up the wet stone. “Can’t leave him here.” The second kitten noses his knuckles. “I’ve got you,” he murmurs. “Shhhh.” 

Will takes the second one and it twists, back claws digging into his wrist. He hisses in breath. “It’s okay,” he says, bringing it close to the first. He cradles them together. “I forgive you. You couldn’t help it.”

Both kittens start to purr in their loud, ragged voices. One of them looks up at him, twists its head around, and chirrups.

He carries them out of the water. He pushes against the deep sway of the waves, flesh growing heavier as the water recedes. He strides up onto the dry sand and squats, placing the kittens on his shirt. He uses the sleeves to rub them dry. “You need a bath,” he says. “Both of you. You’re all salty. And you’re hungry, I bet.”

One of them lets out a tiny, sharp meow.

“I need to get you guys some food.”

One wanders off the shirt and onto the sand. Will picks it up, places it back. It turns around in a wobbly circle, heads back toward the water.

“You don’t like to do what you’re told.” He picks the kitten up, flips it onto its back. He grins. It reaches up, bats his nose with a gentle paw. “This is a problem with all of your kind, you know.”

The other kitten plunks its butt down in the middle of the shirt, extends one leg, and licks its toes.

“Come on. Let’s get you guys to the car.”

He bundles them into an empty file box and they don’t like it, yowling, paws reaching through the handle-holes to scratch at the sturdy cardboard.

“Sorry, guys,” he says. “It’s not pleasant for you, I understand that, but I can’t just let you run loose in my car.”

He sits down behind the wheel and his skin starts to tighten, roots of his hair itching beneath the drying salt’s strangle-hold. Sand crumbles off his feet. 

He starts the engine, backs out, the crunch of the sand beneath the wheels loud despite the wind. His headlights flash across the bushes, sun-faded paint, palm trunks. A bleached-white grocery bag, hung up on the edge of a trash can, ripples like a flag.

“Now,” he mutters, looking around, “how do I get out of here?”

On the way, he pulls over to consult the GPS. It tells him in its too-loud electronic voice where to turn, when to stop, where to look for big green signs that hang over intersections, the letters white and reflecting, bouncing meager light back to his eyes.

He finds a 7-Eleven manned by a sleepy teenage boy. He runs in, buys two cans of Friskies with what little money he has.

He looks for cat litter, but there is no cat litter. He buys a newspaper instead.

He finds his way back to the hotel. The building is too big, too white, the orange roof ungainly. He doesn’t remember the short feathery palms that hug its walls. The shapes of the oleanders are foreign to him. The outside lights pierce the greenery, cast big circles on the asphalt.

Inside, the air is too cold. Will starts to shiver as he crosses the threshold, cardboard box held in both hands. It scratches and rocks as he carries it up the two flights of stairs to his room. The cat food cans slide back and forth, back and forth.

The four walls of his hotel room are white and smooth. The carpet, dull brown, receives the kittens. By his gentle hands, they tumble out of the document box. Both of them are black. One is long-haired. The other, big-eared, has a tiny white spot in the center of its chest.

“Here,” says Will, ripping the newspaper into strips. He gets on his knees to arrange them in the lid of the box. “Sorry, guys. It’s the best I can do.”

He fills the sink with warm water. He uncaps the bottle of hotel shampoo. 

The one with the white spot is female. “Stella,” he says, soaping up her wriggling hind legs. “Stella Maris, star of the sea.” 

She lets loose a piercing meow, tries to wriggle out of his soapy hands.

Will shrugs, scoops water with his hand up over her back. “It’s as good a name as any.”

The long-haired one is also female. “I don’t know what I’ll call you yet,” he says, rubbing her head dry with a washcloth.

He rubs them dry, puts them on the floor. He strips off his clothes. He leaves them on the tile floor and thinks about taking a shower, but as he imagines himself lifting his foot over the rim of the tub, turning on the water, the spray hitting his head, the room starts to waver. He blinks. In the mirror, the overhead light makes his face look bruised, his neck dead. It blackens his hair. It turns the veins along the insides of his forearms a frigid shade of blue. 

He wanders out of the bathroom. He climbs onto the bed, falls face-first into the pillow.

Later, the kittens haul him out of a black stuporous sleep with their cries. They refuse to settle until he picks them up, one at a time, and places them on the bed.

Will shuts off the light.

One climbs onto his chest. The other curls in a tight ball next to his hair.

They sleep.


	9. Tattle Crime

 

  
_Lumen,  
_

_I squeezed some OJ for you this morning and left it in the fridge. Text me if you want to grab some lunch, today should be a good day for it._

_I’ll see you later. Any supper thoughts?_

_Dex._

She yawns, scratches the back of her head. She pulls the note off the refrigerator. She reaches up into the cabinet for a glass. Blinding white light pours in through the slatted windows, weakens the shadows. It spreads its load of heat across the tops of her feet. She opens the refrigerator and takes out the carafe, a carton of eggs, a package of bacon.

_Your man Graham? He’s in a hotel fifteen miles from here._

Lumen takes a deep breath, lets it out. She fills her glass with juice. She takes down a skillet, centers it on the burner. She turns it on. The windows muffle the traffic sounds but they sneak in, burrow beneath the soft hum of the air conditioner, break the silence apart.

_All the Florida coastal jurisdictions got an email._

She butters the pan, cracks three eggs into it. She listens to the eggs sizzle as she pads around the corner on bare feet and enters the bedroom. She digs her laptop out of the bottom of her bag. She carries it back to the kitchen, pulls up the stool. She sits. She turns it on, flips up the screen.

“Okay, Freddie,” she murmurs, starting to type. She hooks her messy hair behind her ears. “Tell me what’s really going on.”

The web page pulls up, blinks to life. She strokes the touchpad, takes a sip of her juice.

The front-page exclusive shows an old exhausted man in front of a fancy front door. He looks startled, the skin loose around his mouth, his eyes flat: ALABAMA SENATOR FEATURED PROMINENTLY IN MANUFACTURE AND DISTRIBUTION OF CHILD PORNOGRAPHY.

Lumen scrolls, scans the sidebar. Filed under the Yesterday tab she sees 2 DEAD GIRLS FOUND IN CORAL GABLES: IS THERE A NEW SERIAL KILLER ON THE LOOSE? She clicks on the link.

She gets up, grabs a spatula. She flips the eggs one at a time, eases them facedown. She pulls two slices of bread from a half-finished loaf and drops them into the toaster. She reaches over the sink, turns the laptop around so she can read. She takes down a plate. She wrestles open the package of bacon.

_CORAL GABLES, FL._

_Early this morning, a young couple looking forward to a leisurely day at the beach met up with a grisly surprise: two young women, their lower bodies cut off and replaced with shark tails, lay sprawled at the tide line. The bodies of the young women turned toward each other, arms reaching, as though seeking solace even in death._

“God, what shitty writing.” Lumen shakes her head. She slides the eggs onto the plate, places it inside the microwave. She peels strips of bacon out of the package. She lays them side by side in the pan. “Pay better or something, Freddie, because your roster of correspondents really needs help.”

_A source confirms that the presentation of the bodies matches that of another victim, this one found in Rockport, Texas, three months ago._

The toast pops up. Lumen tears off a paper towel. She plucks the slices out of the toaster, tosses them onto the towel. She grabs a clean butter knife out of the dish rack.

_This same source also confirms FBI involvement._

“Yeah,” she says, flipping the bacon strips, “that’s what I heard, too.”

_A team dispatched from the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI arrived in Coral Cables this morning and set up camp at the crime scene. For three long hot hours, they bagged and tagged while the local cops wrangled the rubberneckers and kept the beach closed for business. The bodies, once photographed, were moved to Coral Gables Hospital._

Three photos show a broad swath of beach blocked off with sawhorses. Inside, the white sand is churned up by footprints. Yellow crime scene tape bows in the wind.

Lumen turns the heat down on the bacon, covers it. She grabs a towel off the oven handle, wipes the grease off her fingers. She leans in, squints. She clicks on one of the photos.

Two men in FBI vests stand in one corner of the crime scene, turned toward each other. A woman, also in a vest, squats inside the tape and examines what looks like a broken piece of shell. Her dark hair is pulled back into a high ponytail. It blows along one side of her face, strands fluttering across her chin. A big black man dressed in a twilight-purple shirt, a dark blue tie, and gray trousers positions himself between a pair of local police officers and the crime scene. His feet are planted far apart, his hands held out in front of him. Black sunglasses shield his eyes. His fingers are spread. His mouth is half-open.

Lumen clicks on the second photo. In this one, the bodies are in bags, lifted by police and FBI alike off the sand.

In the third, all three FBI agents are inside the tape. They crouch close to the perimeter. Two of them, the woman and one of the men, are facing each other. The man points at something on the ground. Both hold bags marked EVIDENCE.

Beyond the borders of the crime scene, down where the water fades into the sand, stands a man in cream khakis and a short-sleeved blue plaid button-up. The cuffs of his pants are rolled up past his ankles. His hands are in his pockets. His toes are buried in water. The vicious sun scatters light across the bay behind him. It passes through his ruffled hair, burns it red at the edges. It glints off his glasses. His brow is furrowed, his skin washed pale by the morning light. His mouth is a raw line.

“And there you are,” she whispers.

She picks up the computer, brings the screen closer to her face. Despite the quality of the photo, all that wavering distance tricked into soft-focus detail by a telephoto lens, in his eyes she can still see the drop-off, the darkness, a thousand-yard stare dredged up from some deep current and turned loose on the world.

The bacon starts to burn.

“Shit!” Lumen puts the computer down and yanks the lid off the skillet, uses it to fan the smoke. She turns off the burner. “Goddammit,” she says, hauling the pan off the stove and dumping the meat into the garbage. “Fuck fucking fuckballs. I really wanted to eat that, too.”

She closes the computer. She grabs a paper towel and takes her plate out of the microwave. She transfers the toast to the plate and picks up her juice and carries them into the living room. She sits, sets the food on the coffee table.

_Fifteen miles. It’s not far. The beach is open. You could go to it._

“And that,” she says, chuckling as she waves her fork around, “is a monumentally bad idea.”

_Why? Look out the windows. Look at the bay. That sun. It’s a beautiful day._

“There are better ways to spend it.” She takes a big bite of toast. “Like, I don’t know, looking for a job.”

She chews, swallows. She picks up her glass of juice, looks out the window. On the other side of the glass the sun is wild, harsh, it fills the grass and the palms and the leaves of the tropical plants with an aggressive shade of green, it sharpens the soft blue of the bay into the keen edge of a blade. It fills them to the brim with color, the way it fills an emerald or a sapphire with color.

“It is beautiful,” she murmurs. “All the days are like this, too. One after the other.” She sips. “It’s amazing.”

* * *

 

“How lovely to hear from you, Will. Good morning.”

Will sighs. He closes his eyes. “Hello, Dr. Lecter.”

“Are you well?”

He goes to the window of his hotel room, leans his forearm into the wall. He looks at the parking lot below. “Uh,” he swallows. “No. Not exactly.”

“What’s happened?”

“I…last night I was sleepwalking.” He straightens up, wipes his face. “Well, sleep-driving, to be precise. I ended up at this beach, I looked it up.” He turns his back on the window. “It was Miami Beach. I have no idea how I got there. I’ve never been there before.”

“Have you told Jack about this?”

“No, no. Of course not.” Will watches Stella walk out of the white-tiled bathroom, tail lifted. She looks around. The other kitten streaks out from beneath the bed and jumps on her, sends her rolling onto her back with a full-body tackle. “I ended up at the far end of Miami Beach, Doctor. I fell asleep in the car and drove myself there. How? Why?”

“Did you have an intended destination when you got in the car?”

Will shrugs. “No, not really. Sort of. I thought about taking a ride by the crime scene, maybe getting out and pacing the perimeter.”

“Perhaps your subconscious lifted the route of a map you were looking at earlier. You have spent some time in Florida, yes?”

“Yeah.” Will sits on the edge of the bed. “Mostly south of here, though.”

“So your mind intimately knows the lie of the land. It was able to plot a course for you, even though in waking life you had never been to that particular beach.”

“Maybe. I don’t know. I guess.” He leans forward, props his forearms on his knees. He rubs his forehead. His eyes are closed. “It’s as good an explanation as any.”

“How is your sleep otherwise?”

“Oh, you mean when I’m not driving around south Florida in a somnambulant state? It’s just peachy.”

“It was a serious question, Will, and I am seeking a serious answer.”

“It’s…okay. Most nights, I wake up a couple of times. I have a lot of dreams.”

“Nightmares?”

“Some.” Will opens his eyes. Stella is climbing onto his right foot. She wraps her paws around his toes, bites them. “Mostly, though, just…dreams. Weird ones.” He reaches down, picks her up. “They have a kind of hallucinatory quality to them, at times.”

“I imagine so. Your mind is a unique and unusual territory, Will. It would surprise me greatly to hear of it being occupied by the average man’s dreams.”

“Do you think this is something I should worry about?” He puts the kitten on his thigh. He strokes her. “Is there some kind of pill you want me to take?”

“Hypnotic sleep sedatives increase incidences of sleepwalking rather than decreasing them. In one already prone to sleepwalking, it would be an inappropriate choice of treatment.”

“I…I think I should have a brain scan. When I get home.” Stella bites at his fingers. He moves her onto the bed. “Just to rule out an organic cause.”

“I don’t believe a brain scan is necessary at this time. It is normal, even natural, to feel unsettled by an abrupt change in surroundings. Add to that the disruption of returning to the field and the distressing nature of this case and you have the perfect recipe for this sort of thing to occur. I would be very surprised if it happened again.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes. If it happens again, we will discuss it further.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“There is nothing to say, Will.”

“But I…I don’t know, I guess I thought it was a bigger deal than this.” He stands. “It would be a bigger deal than this.”

“It can be. I don’t think it is.”

“All right. Thank you, Dr. Lecter, for your time.” He scratches the back of his head. “As always.”

“Indeed, Will.”

He glances at the bedside alarm clock. “Speaking of your time, I don’t want to take up any more of it.”

“I would like to fly down there, for the duration of the case. It’s not that I want to hold your hand, metaphorically speaking; in fact, I have no interest in monitoring you unless you desire it of me. The nature of this case fascinates me. I’d like to lend my perspective.”

Will drifts back to the window. “I don’t see any reason why you would need to do such a thing, Dr. Lecter.”

“It’s not a need. I want to. But, if it will make you uncomfortable, if it will make you feel as though I am encroaching upon your territory…I won’t.”

“No. No. It’s fine.” He puts his hand on the glass, feels the heat of the day pressing against it. “I’m sure Jack would appreciate the help.”

“Very well. Perhaps I will see you before the end of the day?”

“Perhaps.” He nods. “Okay. Good bye, Dr. Lecter.”

“Good bye, Will. Do enjoy the rest of your day.”

Will hangs up. He looks at this phone, holds it, takes a deep breath. He lets it out in a slow whistle. The kitten with no name toddles out from beneath the bed and latches onto his pant leg. He bends over, loosens her claws from the fabric. He picks her up. He looks out the window. He cradles her against his chest. She starts to purr. He tosses the phone onto the bed, rubs between her ears and stares past the palms, the parking lot, and into the street, where cars flash by.

“An attempt will be made,” he mutters.

* * *

 

Lumen sits in her car in a run-down neighborhood beneath the shade of a Poinciana tree. Its flaming red petals scatter across her windshield, tumble with the wind, fall to the pavement. They linger on her windshield wipers like bits of burning blood.

She sits in the shade, stares across a vacant lot. The ground is torn up, dusty white, lumber stacked in squares in one corner, earth-moving machinery parked and abandoned in another. Beyond that the street, and on the other side a big white building lies surrounded by palms and tall spindly trees, concrete pots filled with lantana, a parking lot with freshly sealed asphalt stinking of tar in the shimmering heat. Her eyes move over it, trace the angles, memorize the curve of the corners, the unbroken spaces. The windows are dark slots of glass and the door is pushed back, enfolded by the shape of the building. It’s difficult to see between the stretch of parking lot and the trunks of trees, palm fronds, the dappled shadows of branches. Three flagpoles stand in front of it.

She has a book. It’s a big leather-bound thing she snatched off Dexter’s shelf, The Complete Works of Ernest Hemingway, open across the steering wheel. Big mirrored sunglasses cover her eyes; she rests them on an excerpt of The Old Man and the Sea for seconds at a time, uses it to break up her long lingering looks at the parking lot, the sidewalk, the long concrete path leading up to the door.

The windows are rolled down. A breeze slides from one side of the car to the other, humid, languid, it’s like a cat passing by, like hot velvet on her skin holding her body’s moisture close. Sweat glitters on her forehead, her collarbones. It slides down her chin. A big jug of sun-heated water leans against the backrest of the passenger seat.

She is afraid.

She clamps her teeth around it, bites down. She rides her fear like a current of electricity. Her fingers tremble. Each breath shakes its way out of her throat.

_I just want to know where he is. So I can stay away from him._

She picks up the jug of water, takes a drink. The big black man from the Tattlecrime article steps out onto the concrete path, his eyes covered by sunglasses. He’s talking. He takes big steps, his shoulders broad beneath his tropic-weight suit jacket. His arms swing into their maximum allotment of space. He turns his head. The sun gleams on the Bluetooth in his ear.

Lumen glances down at the stack of pictures in her lap. She lifts some of them up, peers at the photo beneath. “You’re Jack Crawford,” she murmurs.

He crosses the parking lot, strides toward a black SUV parked close to the building. He climbs in. The windows are heavily tinted, obliterating his silhouette from her view. The vehicle remains still for an agonizing five minutes. Lumen watches the taillights flare to life. He backs slowly out of the parking space.

She sighs. She turns her head, looks at the little houses on the street, many of them in disrepair, once-bright paint fading off the chipped stucco. The hibiscus shrubs have grown wild, ragged, untamed by any loving hand. The palms in the yards are stunted, the leaves turning yellow.

She returns her attention to the building. The doors open for a pair of women she doesn’t recognize. One’s white, the other Latina. Both wear skirt-suits and sensible heels. They tread the long concrete path to the sidewalk, looking at each other, talking. They turn left, onto the sidewalk.

Lumen leans her head back into the seat. She wipes the sweat off her face. She thinks about taking another drink but doesn’t. She thinks about the heat, hot it’s softened into her bones, settled like a swoon into her blood. She thinks about him, Will Graham; she imagines him emerging from the building, the sparse and inscrutable rhythm of his body, his blank face turned in her direction.

She closes her eyes, imagines recognition on his face. She wonders where it would start, how it would kindle there; at first she sees it in the mouth, its tightening, a flex in the jaws and then it begins with a twitch in his cheek, beneath both eyes, at the juncture between bone and the place where smile-lines are just beginning to lay their tracks in his skin. It tightens the corners of his mouth, climbs up into his eyes and unlocks the constant restlessness that lives there. Such a sight would swarm her, it would drown her in adrenaline. Buried deep in this fever dream, she feels her joints disable themselves, such softening a betrayal. Her body pours out a flood of sweat. Her heart pounds. It flings itself against the cage of her ribs, rattles the bones, cries out for release.

When she sees him in her mind, she knows: hiding in the topography of his face are a thousand ways to signal the beginning of a memory and all of them are shuttered. When his mouth opens in her mind, she knows: those secrets sing to her, each to each, across a deep and trembling darkness.

Her breath quickens.

She opens her eyes.


	10. Oleanders

The bright light is disorienting. Lumen shakes her head. She picks up the jug, takes a long drink. 

Another woman leaves the building. She pushes through the doors with one hand, her feet swift. She draws closer to the road and Lumen recognizes her; it’s the long-haired agent in the photograph, and today she is wearing a loose knee-length black skirt and a sleeveless blouse of iridescent plum. Her near-black hair is left down. She, too, is on the phone, it is held up to her ear. On her feet are practical-looking sandals. She pauses, turns, shifts the strap of her purse higher up on her shoulder. 

Lumen takes another drink. “I wonder where they’re all going?” She glances at her phone. “It’s a little early to just knock off for the day.” 

The dark-haired woman hangs up the phone. She folds her arms, turns toward the doors. 

Will Graham walks through them. 

“Okay.” Lumen starts the car. “Now we’re getting somewhere.” 

Will turns his head toward the woman. He shades his eyes as he walks. He’s dressed in khakis and white button-up shirt, they look rumpled. The strong sunlight passes through the shirt like a sigh. 

The dark-haired woman loosens her stance. She starts to talk, snaps her fingers, shifts her weight to one hip. She tilts her head and folds her arms, it’s apparent to Lumen from her loose shoulders, her relaxed spine, the way she’s tapping her toe that she’s giggling. 

The look on Will’s face is both remote and vaguely bewildered. He looks away, starts to smile; he hesitates, the smile flickers in and out, hovers over his face like a bird or some other animal that can’t decide whether or not it wants to alight. 

Lumen cranks up the air conditioning. She rolls up all the windows. The air goes from hot to lukewarm, tepid, it blasts through her hair. It gains a cool edge. 

Will nods. Speaks. The smile touches down, flashes quick and brilliant. His smile passes over him like the shadow of a raptor. 

Lumen holds her breath. 

The woman turns her body, gestures toward the parking lot. Will nods again. They move onto the pavement. They walk at arm’s-length distance, out of sync in their steps. They stop. The woman nods. Her hands come out, describe the parameters of something. 

They part ways. 

Lumen exhales. 

The woman walks to a little red car. Will passes her by, waves. He swerves into patches of shade. He looks down. When he comes to a white sedan with dark windows, he pauses. He pulls the keys out of his back pocket. The taillights flash. 

Lumen takes hold of the steering wheel. The vents blow ice-cold air into her face. She clenches her teeth, eyes on his back windshield. She tightens her grip, writhes through a full-body shiver. 

The white car backs out of the parking space. Lumen looks in the rearview. She glances over her shoulder, pulls away from the curb. Will approaches the road, flicks on his blinker. She flicks on hers. He turns into traffic. She looks both ways, glances at his license plate, looks both ways again. She eases out into the lane. A low-slung black import slides between them and she taps the brakes. 

The white car slows in anticipation of a red light. 

Lumen slows a little more. Another car turns into the space between them, this one bottle-green and some kind of hatchback. It rolls to a stop. Lumen does too. 

The light changes. Will drifts over into the right-hand turning lane. Lumen bites her lip, waits for the import and the hatchback to pass him before hitting her blinker. She pulls in behind the white car. 

“Looks like you’re…okay, okay,” she says, following him into a McDonald’s drive-thru. “Shit. Do I have any money?” 

The line slows to a halt. Lumen throws it in park, grabs her purse. She pulls out her wallet, feels for dollars. Her eyes move back and forth between her lap and the shape of Will’s silhouette. 

“What can you get for three bucks? I don’t know…coffee?” She tosses the money onto the dash. “One of those gross little burgers?” 

The line starts up again. She steadies the wheel, rolls forward. The white car reaches the speaker. Lumen rolls her window down. 

“I’ll have a quarter pounder.” 

Lumen sees the slope of his nose, the stubble on his chin. 

“And a coffee. Iced. Large, please. Some fries too.” 

The girl on the other side of the speaker sounds about sixteen. In a light Spanish accent, asks if he wants to make that into a meal. 

“I don’t…I don’t know. Sure. I guess. Small. Make it small. I still want the large coffee, though.” 

She quotes a total. 

“Thank you.” He rolls up the window. 

Lumen comes to the speaker. 

“Welcome to McDonald’s. What can I get for you today?” 

“I’ll have a small iced coffee, please. Vanilla if you’ve got it.” 

“We’ve got it. Anything else?” 

“No.” 

“Okay…does it look right on the screen?” 

Lumen glances at it. “Yeah, it’s fine.” 

“Okay. That’ll be two eighty-nine, please drive around.” 

“Thank you.” 

Lumen’s phone buzzes. She looks down. Her purse is still in her lap. She reaches inside, feels around. She watches Will’s hand pass money. 

She grabs her phone, turns it over. 

_[Hannibal: As it so happens, my life is taking me to Miami tonight. I am unsure as to how long I will be in town, but I would love to take you up on your offer of breakfast. Or would you perhaps prefer dinner?]_

Her mouth drops open, her eyebrows shoot up; she shakes her head in a set of forceful, exaggerated motions. Her eyes roll heavenward. She first flaps, then surrenders her hands. She rests them on the wheel. She takes deep breaths. She blinks several times. She rolls up to the window. 

“Two eighty-nine.” 

Lumen hands over the cash. The girl passes her a clear plastic cup packed full of ice. It swirls with momentum; the coffee itself is the milky golden color of caramel. 

“Thank you. Eleven cents. Have a nice day!” 

“I will try, thank you.” 

The white car pulls up to the exit. Lumen dumps the coffee in the cup holder, tosses the napkins and straw into the passenger seat. 

The traffic is heavy. His turn signal winks on. Lumen’s car emerges into the sun. She rolls up her window. She pulls up behind him. 

Lumen grips the steering wheel, bares her teeth, thrashes herself against it in a violent burst of pique. She pretends to scream. 

“Are you fucking _kidding_ me? Of all the…” 

The white car rolls across traffic, turns against the flow. 

“Goddammit.” She hits the gas, jerks to a stop. She slaps her blinker on. “Shitty fucking timing, Hannibal. Like…the shittiest. You don’t even know.” 

A break in traffic shows itself and she stomps the gas. She glimpses Will’s back bumper, now five cars ahead of her. She sits up, sees the long string of traffic lights ahead, one every half-mile as they flash through their colors. None of them are in sync. They cut the traffic into segments, shuffle them in and out of order. 

It takes twenty minutes for the lights to shave down the distance between them. 

“If I had to guess,” she murmurs, turning onto a causeway, “we’re going to the beach.” 

The land falls back, gives itself over to sheets of pale glittering water. Low-growing palms line both sides of the road, their fan-shaped leaves forming deep green globes. A haze on the horizon shrouds a scattering of silver high-rises. 

The concrete lifts away from the ground. Lumen speeds over the water, the sensation of acceleration building in her belly, her thighs. The white car leaps ahead of her as the bridge reaches its apex. The horizon has a skyline on one side, is fashioned out of low scrubby greenery on the other. She stomps down on the gas. Railings blur past. 

_I have already been this way once today. In the morning, the light so much whiter than this, the green of the short trees like a fit, a spasm of aggressive color. The long white strand was empty, stretching away. Its high-tide line was snarled, thick with clumps of brown seaweed…except for one place, it’s quite a walk to get to it, it’s amazing that the police and the FBI would not have had to work so hard to keep the lookie-loos away. There, the seaweed is gone. The heavy wind has not quite raked the footfalls out of the sand. It’s a disturbed place, a broken line. No one there but pelicans, sandpipers, broken shells and the incessant sound of the water, the wind, smoothing everything back into place._

Will drives deeper into the wild scrubland, through spotty shade. The branches have the thin look of having grown close to the sea, twisted in the narrow places by constant wind, the leaves sheared into immature shapes. 

They are the only two cars on the road. 

Lumen glances at her coffee. She grabs the straw off the passenger seat, bites the paper off it, pulls it loose with her teeth. She spits it onto the dash. She picks up the cup. With her mouth, she aims and slides the straw down through the plastic lid. 

“I don’t even like coffee,” she says, taking a suck. 

The white car slows. It turns into a long parking lot. Lumen passes him. He parks beside a sandy pathway. She puts six empty spaces between them, pulls into the spindly, lacy shade of a clump of coconut palms and kills the engine. 

Will climbs out of the car. He carries his paper bag with him, coffee balanced in his other hand. The wind lifts his hair, tosses it against his cheeks. It ripples through his shirt. 

Lumen watches him disappear. She takes another drink, the ice has half-melted, diluting the bitter bite of the brew. The coffee cup sweats into her hand. The vanilla flavoring is sticky and sweet; the scent makes her think of oleanders. 

She rolls down the windows. The wind tumbles in, smells of salt and hot pavement. It has a cool edge, soft, it blows the heat off her skin and combs the sweat out of her hair. She drinks more coffee. It tingles on her tongue, the caffeine rushing to her head. She dumps it back in the cup holder. She wipes her mouth, pulls her phone out of her purse. 

_[Me: I’ve got a lot of free time at the moment. Breakfast or dinner? I’ll leave that choice to you.]_

She tucks the phone into her pocket, gets out of the car. The wind whips around her, pushes her hair back from her face. It passes through the thin knit material of her tank top. Grains of sand rattle against her bare shins. She takes her purse out of the car, loops it over her shoulder. She takes the jug of water. 

As she walks down the path, she touches her back pocket. She’s wearing old cutoffs, the denim a faded blue rubbed thin by years of washings. 

_I remember that night, how I released that pig-fucker’s blood and Dexter used it to find me. The pig-fucker got the knife away from me, he kicked it away. Big blood drops almost black in the moonlight. Its handle was mother-of-pearl; it glowed white in the moonlight. My first knife._

Here, the beach is narrow. Lumen walks down to the water’s edge, turns her back on the point. She looks down. 

_I wanted it back._

Lumen walks, swigging from her jug of water; the immensity of the ocean is distracting, it pulls her gaze away from the sand, onto itself, shows off its hues that are like all the moods of the sky, its clarity, and its lazy rhythm. Her feet slow down. She takes off her sandals, carries them looped over the fingers of one hand. The long golden light of afternoon slants over the tiny waves. It chips flakes of hot metal off the water’s surface, scatters them. 

She pulls her gaze away from the indistinct horizon. She sees him. Though there are three others on the beach, one is in a lounger, the other two asleep on towels, she knows Will by his stance, the carton of French fries in his hands and the way his pants are rolled up past his calves so he can stand in the water. He has taken his shirt off, tied it low around his waist. The khaki bunches around his knees is darkened. He stands facing what remains of the crime scene, its fingerprint on the landscape. He tosses French fries to the seagulls and they screech, wheeling, scrabbling in circles. The birds joust with each other, pluck them free of the hot sand. 

Lumen leaves her sandals and her jug at the tide line. She walks out into the water, it’s warm close to the edge, where it sits on top of the sand. She wades in deeper. It stays tepid, gentle. Her shadow stretches toward the horizon, dappled on the sea bottom with scintillating light. She goes out until the water climbs up past her thighs. She looks back. She moves her purse higher across her shoulder. The water’s subtle rhythmic weight tugs at her knees. 

He’s still there, ankle-deep, the empty French fry carton stuffed into his back pocket. The sun shows the beginnings of a tan on his forearms. The rest of him is white, smooth, freckled across the shoulder blades from past summers. The nape of his neck and the small of his back gleam with sweat. 

She takes her phone out of her pocket. She pulls her purse around to her front, unzips it. She turns her back on the land, moves to tuck the phone inside. She glances at the screen instead. 

_[Hannibal: Why not both?]_

Lumen shrugs a shoulder, turns the phone sideways. Her thumbs tap the screen. “Why not indeed?” 

_[Me: Breakfast in the morning, then?]_

She squints at the letters, scrutinizing them. She hits send. The phone buzzes. 

_[Dex: Supper thoughts?]_

“No, Dex,” she murmurs, tapping out a reply. “No supper thoughts.” 

Fingers dig into the back of her waistband. Lumen freezes. Her body goes numb and then the adrenaline comes, blooming hot, swelling the pulse of her blood, crashing it up into her face. Everything is too bright; the pale sky, the water, the haze that holds the white horizon in its grip. Her eyes sting. 

The hand rolls into a hard fist. Lumen’s fingers clamp down on her phone. 

Will brings his mouth to her ear. “Why are you following me?” 

The blade of her knife rests on her belly, between her shorts and her tank top, along the narrow strip of rising and falling skin. 

“I don’t know you,” Lumen pants. The edge of the blade grazes her skin, sends gooseflesh cascading down her back. Lumen’s breath catches, her spine arches. She gasps. He sets his grip on the hilt. “I’ve never seen you before. I-I…I have no idea what you’re talking about.” 

“Shhhhhhh shh shh shh,” he breathes, lowering his voice. “Yes. You do.” 

“I-I don’t…” She squeezes her eyes shut. “I-I… don’t,” she whispers. 

His voice is low and confidential. “I know who you are.” His breath touches her ear. “Your name is Lumen Ann Pierce. Your date of birth is February tenth, nineteen seventy-nine. Place of birth, Minneapolis, Minnesota.” 

Lumen’s mouth opens. Her breath comes quick and short. 

“And your last known address,” he says, speaking slowly, “was eight sixty-five Rock River Road, Argonne, Minnesota. Your driving record is remarkably pristine. Your criminal background check comes back clean.” 

Her hands tremble. 

“Why are you following me?” He shakes his head, enunciates. “I can’t figure it out.” 

Lumen sucks in a breath. “Why are you following me?” 

“I’m not.” 

“Bullshit,” she whispers. 

Will lets go of her jeans. He tosses the knife into the water. 

Lumen whips around. She takes big ungainly steps back and the combination of water and shifty sand knocks her off-balance. Her arms wheel, hands flapping; her hips twist as she scrambles to regain her footing. She watches him, shoves her phone into her purse. 

Will stands, arms loose at his sides. He looks at her. His cheekbones and the tops of his shoulders are flushed with the sun, his khakis soaked halfway up the thighs. Wind blows his hair off his forehead. “Now I suppose you’re going to lie to my face.” 

Lumen hugs herself. “No.” 

“Good.” He shades his eyes. 

“That was a little dramatic,” she says, folding her arms. “You could have just…you know, walked up to me and asked.” 

“Maybe you’re more dangerous than you look.” 

Lumen lifts her chin. “Maybe.” 

“Or maybe not.” He turns his palms up. “I don’t know, do I?” 

She shifts her weight. “No.” 

He swallows. “I…uh…I ran your plates in Minnesota. After…after I pulled over.” He looks at the horizon. “When I saw you, there on the side of the road.” He glances at her. “I couldn’t tell.” 

“It’s fine.” 

Will nods. “Okay.” 

“I…I only knew you were in town, um…because my…” Lumen hooks hair behind her ears. “My friend, well, the person I’m staying with. He works for Miami Metro.” She pushes at the sand with her toes, watches it swirl. “I recognized you.” She glances at him. “From Tattlecrime.” 

“Oh.” His eyebrows lift and he nods, a corner of his mouth twitching. He looks away, rubs the back of his neck. “I see.” 

“I followed the case a little,” she says. “But only a little.” 

Will moves a hand over his face. “Uh huh.” 

“You know…for what it’s worth, I think Freddie Lounds is full of shit.” Lumen shrugs a shoulder, looks at him sidelong. “For what it’s worth.” 

“Yeah, for what it’s worth.” He nods, then shakes his head. “Uh huh.” 

“She’s a little prone to hyperbole.” 

He snorts. “Slightly.” 

“So…” Lumen leans to one side. She tilts her head, lifts her chin at him. “Where’s your gun?” 

He looks down the beach. “I left it in the car.” 

“Not very smart, huh? Considering I could be more dangerous than I look.” 

He looks at her. Blinks. “I don’t need one.” 

Her eyebrows go up. “Oh?” 

Will tilts his head. “Not always.” 

She runs a hand across her mouth. She lifts an eyebrow. “I see.” 

He folds his arms. “Am I…am I going to see you again?” 

“Why would you?” 

“I mean…I mean like this,” he says, gesturing at their surroundings. “Behind me on the highway, across the street from the Miami FBI field office.” He smiles a little. “In the McDonald’s drive-thru.” 

“No, I don’t think so.” 

He rocks from foot to foot, watches the surface of the water. He lifts his eyebrows, glances at her from beneath his eyelashes. “That’s not very convincing.” 

“Um, okay. Well…why would I? To use your logic,” she says, gesturing at him, “I don’t have any reason to.” 

“That is true.” 

Lumen peers at the seafloor, stretches out with her foot. She curls her toes around the knife’s hilt. “Am I going to see you again?” 

“No.” 

She balances on one leg, pulls the knife up enough to grab it. She rinses it, shakes the water off. She folds it up. “Even if you just happen to see me pulled over on the side of the road?” 

“Yes.” He blushes and nods, rubs his chin. He shakes his head. “Even if I see you on the shoulder, all four tires blown out, black smoke billowing out from beneath your crashed and dented and popped hood, I will not pull over.” 

Lumen puts the knife in her front pocket. She struggles not to grin. “Promise?” 

He nods once, glances away from her face. “Yes.” 

“Okay.” She backs up. 

“Okay.” 

She turns, hugs her purse to her chest. The space behind her fills in with wind, brings itself in close; in its brush against her skin she feels her departure the way she would feel someone take their warmth, their heat, with them as they leave a room. She walks toward the shore. 

The dry sand is white beneath the sun. The sound of the waves wraps around her; it seems loud, overpowering. She looks up. She scans the beach. The others have gone, left only footprints behind. Lumen bends over. She snatches up her jug. The water inside has clouded the plastic with condensation. She brushes sand off the bottom. She picks up her sandals. She looks back, over her shoulder. 

Will’s back is to the sea. The water is still up past his knees. He braces himself against the low waves, shades his eyes with the flat of his hand. 


	11. Odysseus, Who Has Cut Himself Free

The wind shears in off the sea. It deconstructs the arrangement of Hannibal’s hair. “You hope the land will speak to you, then?”

Will shakes his head. “No.” His eyes traces the shapes of the dunes. “It’s not that.”

“The park will close soon.”

“I know. I spoke to the rangers.” Will stands, brushes sand off his knees. “They’ll let me stay as long as I like.” He glances at Hannibal’s face. “You as well.”

Hannibal stands, his flank turned to the wind. “It is a remote area, once the sun has gone down.” His suit is a tan color, it’s cut a little loose, the fabric is tropic weight. It ripples on him like water in the wind; the fabric has a mild sheen imparted to it by the fading sun. “It is your thought that the killer floated them into the sand?”

_Undyed tussore_ , Will thinks, _it’s the wild silk gathered off mountain pepper; the diet of the silkworms has something to do with the color_. Briefly he wonders what part of his mind houses that knowledge, where he was when he acquired such a useless bit of information.

Will nods. “Yes. Not just because it’s easier, either.” He walks up toward the tide line. “There’s something in the swimming that’s part of his…ritual. He needs to be in the water with them. He needs to carry them to shore.”

“Odysseus, who has cut himself free?”

“Maybe.” Will shrugs.

Hannibal takes a step closer. “And yourself? How are you feeling?”

Will moves away from the water, turns. He shrugs a shoulder. “Okay. I think.”

“You think?”

“I…I see things. Sometimes.”

“What things?”

“It depends.”

“On what?”

Will looks at him. “Me.”

“I am not following you.”

“Part of my…whatever it is, empathy disorder, is that I have an exceptionally active imagination.”

“I am aware of that.”

“No, I don’t think so.” Will shakes his head, takes a seat on the sand. He faces the sea. “Sometimes…” He sighs. “I go so deep that when I speak, I’m shocked to hear my own voice. Sometimes I’m so sure that something is there, some…I don’t know, thing—an image, a face, it could be anything—that I actually, physically see it in the real world.”

“And what are you seeing now?”

“Stags.”

“It’s the antlers.”

“Yes, but they are attached to stags, Doctor.” He glances up. “To still-living animals.”

“That is unusual.”

“I thought so.”

“Where was the last place you saw this animal?”

“Here. Earlier today, I was…” Will sighs, looks down. He rubs his forehead.

“Yes?”

“I was here.” Will swallows. “I was doing what I’m doing now.” He scans the horizon. “I was looking at it from the water. The way he would’ve seen it.”

“Is there more?”

“No.” He shakes his head. “I was just…looking, and it stepped out of the dunes, walked down over the sand. It went to the water. It looked at me. Like it was taking my measure. Once I had blinked, it was gone.”

“Interesting.” Hannibal puts himself between Will and the ocean. “Does this animal only visit you at crime scenes?”

“Well…yeah. For the most part. I have seen it in dreams too.”

“And you say this has always happened to you.”

“Yes, though not with this…strength? Clarity? Duration? Usually they are more like flashes, or like a Polaroid that fades into overexposure,” says Will. “The overexposure in this metaphor would be so-called real life.”

Hannibal is a distance away, one foot propped forward on the rising slope. The light reflects off the water, makes his eyes hollow. It makes his cheekbones look bigger, makes his chin look bigger.

_This is a man who burns his way into your perception, like a cigarette pressed into a silk screen. Occasionally, it feels welcome. It commands your regard. Much of the time, I don’t like it._

Will looks up the beach. “I don’t think I’m sleeping as well as I could be.”

“Poor sleep may be a contributor, yes.”

“This thing I’m talking about, it’s more like…I don’t know, some form of narcolepsy, like, where literally I am asleep for a handful of seconds. I go straight from wakefulness to dream sleep, and then boom! Straight back out again, and with no loss of cognitive function.”

“Perhaps. That would be unusual, but it’s not entirely unheard of.”

“When I was young, it would happen sometimes when I got sick. I’d have the flu, be in bed for a day, maybe two. And it would be…solutions, I guess, to things I had been working on. Math problems, or something mechanical. Not fever dreams, though. I’ve had plenty of those.” He shakes his head. “This is a different beast.”

Hannibal smiles. “It is not a wonder to me that Dr. Bloom finds you so fascinating. A helpful form of narcolepsy that is induced by the immune response. There is a paper in there somewhere.”

Will’s mouth quirks. He takes off his glasses. He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Yeah. Uh huh.”

“Come, Will.” Hannibal squats, attempts to look him in the eye. “You cannot fault one brilliant mind’s desire to dance with another. She is a woman who is well able to put academic pursuits ahead of romantic ones, and while I have no wish to denigrate the so-called fairer sex, that is a trait women in our society have been encouraged to bury. If she had indulged society’s inclinations and at an earlier time in her life had traded in the pursuits of the mind for those of marriage and family, our world, our field, would have been so much the poorer for it.”

“I wanted a date, Doctor.” He puts his glasses back on. “Not a marriage.”

Hannibal stands. “If I recall correctly, what you wanted was to follow a kiss to its natural conclusion.”

“Yeah.” Will pulls apart a piece of dried seaweed with his fingers. “Outside of a fairy tale, Doctor, a kiss does not equal a happily ever after.”

“I understand that you feel insulted. But in reality, there is no insult to be had.”

“Just remember this.”

“A kiss is still a kiss?”

Will’s mouth quirks. He flings the pieces of seaweed aside. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“Very well.” He removes himself from Will’s line of sight. “I shall drop the subject.”

“I feel like I’m getting enough sleep. I think I am.” Will folds his legs. He stares at the water. “But I guess that doesn’t mean anything, does it?”

“Not always.”

He glances up. “Have you had time to go over the files?”

“Some. The plane ride here is short. I will catch up on the rest once I get back to my hotel room.”

“I keep feeling as though it’s too obvious.” Will purses his mouth, exhales through his nose. He moves his hands as though he is building something. “The way this looks. That yes, he has a fishing vessel at his disposal and that yes, he has extensive knowledge of the sea, but that whatever conclusions one might naturally draw based upon those facts are just…masks.”

“Go on.”

“It makes you think retired Navy, or someone who fishes for a living, or some other species of retired sea captain, and all of those things fit. I have to admit it.” Will sighs. “But it doesn’t feel right. There’s something off.”

“Will he kill again?”

“Absolutely, without a doubt. The Texas murder was a-a…a dry run, a rehearsal dinner. I mean…look at it, he didn’t even stitch them properly. The holes are uneven. The weight of the line is all wrong. He’s spent the last three months holed up somewhere, or isolated out there on the water, just…perfecting his skill. Not the killing skill, either: I am telling you, there are fish corpses full of stitching floating around in the Gulf, or slowly digesting in shark’s bellies…and there are pieces of other girls out there too, doing the same thing, for all we know. The ocean is a fantastic place to dispose of a body.”

Hannibal watches him.

“He’s been doing all his homework, his theory and his practicals.” Will shakes his head. “This is only his first installation.”

“It would not be good for you to stay out here all night as well as half the day. Have you eaten?”

“I ate awhile ago.” He waves a hand. “I’m okay.”

“You’re sure.”

“Yes.”

“Then I must take my leave,” says Hannibal. “I have a lot of catching up to do.” He looks around. “Do not stay here too long. It will aggravate your sunburn.”

Will holds up a hand. “I’m all right. My skin is fine.”

“Good evening, Will. I will see you in the morning.”

“Bright and early.”

He watches the horizon, listens to Hannibal’s feet carve wells into the sand, receding, until the sound of his retreat is lost under the monotonous howl of the wind. In the distance, where sea disappears into sky, a delicate shade of purple rises up. It trembles in the long curved grip of the miles.

The light filtering through the clouds is pink. It suspends everything in a coral haze. It slants across the sand, tinged with gold, and fills all the holes with darkness.

_Even if you just happen to see me pulled over on the side of the road?_

_He watches her hand on the knife, the angle it makes against her fingers. The sunlight flashes into his eyes, strong already, made sharper still by the high-gloss metal; he watches her, the curl of her hand, her skin against the mother-of-pearl, the water droplets, the long curve of her wrist and the way the hairs on her pale skin take the sunlight and make it into gold._

_…even if on the shoulder all four tires blown black smoke nothing if you are crashed and dented I will not_

_Blood floods his face. He’s hot, dizzy. The long shadow sways into being, slides down the sand behind her._

_Even if I see you on the shoulder, all four tires blown out, black smoke billowing out from beneath your crashed and dented and popped hood, I will not pull over._

_The stag comes. It steps down from the dunes. It is huge, muscled, magnificent in the way brute force unfolds across a body, in the way that growth forces a rending from the soil. It wears an air of finality, a robe of feathers; it is a creature from those woods, come south crowned with glittering frost and dragging dead leaves at its feet. It walks, it does so slowly, in long measured steps. It passes behind her. He does not watch its progress toward the water._

_He looks at Lumen’s face, sees the shadow of an antler pass over one cheekbone. It hides in her hair. Her face softens just enough to let a grin rise to the surface. It melts away, dissipates into her eyes. Promise?_

_The stag snorts. Will smells moss, cobwebs, a veil of rain dragged across a sleepy hollow._

_Yes yesyesyes_

_Yes, he says_

_YES OKAY OKAY_

When Will gets up, the worlds tilts a little before righting itself. He holds out his hands.

He’s hungry.

* * *

 

“Where are you now?”

Crickets shrill in the grass. “I’m outside.”

“This place where you are staying,” he says. “Is it by the water?”

“Yeah.” Lumen walks past the pool, past the coconut palms. “I’ve got a view of the bay.”

“I can see it too.”

“It would be a shame to come to Miami and not stay near the water. There’s so much of it.”

“Yes, it would.” Hannibal pauses. “So. You did it.”

Lumen looks up. Bright windows float against the dusk. “Yes.”

“So, you have returned to Miami. I’m pleased for you.”

“Thank you.” She sighs. “It’s like a huge weight just rolled away with the miles.” She walks to the edge of the land, sits. She takes off her shoes. Her feet dangle. “It took the effort of driving to do it, but I’m…I guess I feel free now.”

“You guess?”

“I just got here.” The wind blows against her face. She looks across the black water. “I have no idea how to feel.”

“Have you returned to Dexter?”

“I’m staying with him yes.” Light glitters across the bay. “If that’s what you mean.”

“Don’t be coy. You’re better than that.”

She makes a face. “I don’t know.”

“Being with him does not fit you the way it once did?”

“I guess not. I don’t know, we haven’t…I-I haven’t been back long enough. I think.” She furrows her brow, rubs at it with the ball of her thumb. “It could fit, I guess. Maybe. With time.”

“Time.” His smile, the slow nature of it, comes out wrapped in his words. “And that is something you have a lot of right now.”

“Yes. Hannibal?”

“Yes, Lumen?”

“I’d like to ask you something.”

“Ask me anything.”

“Are you…” She pauses. “Are you here to work on the case? The…uh, shark girls, or mermaids, or whatever they’re calling it? Is that why you’re here?”

“Yes, but not in an official capacity. I find the details of this case rather fascinating, but whether or not I am to participate in a more official capacity is strictly at the discretion of Will Graham.”

His name hits her body like a blow. “Will Graham? And…and, uh…um…who is Will Graham, exactly?” She starts to sweat. “Is he your boss or something?”

“Mr. Graham is the FBI psychological profiler assigned to this case. I’m rather surprised that Dexter didn’t mention him to you.”

“He didn’t."

“Mr. Graham is a leader in his field and his presence is a boon to the local police. His work is nothing short of exemplary. He is also a teacher at Quantico and has written several notable books on the subject. I worked with him, as a consultant, on the Minnesota Shrike case.”

“I see. I get it, he’s good.”

“He is the best. I have had the singular pleasure of watching him work. It was a joy.”

“So…” She hugs her knees to her chest. “It’s mister Graham? Not doctor? Or, I don’t know, what is it they use? Agent? Special agent? Is it something like that?” She lets out a breathy chuckle. “Am I even close?”

“Yes…and no.” Hannibal chuckles. “Mr. Graham’s gifts are unique. They do not lend themselves well to a strictly defined governmental box.”

“You make him sound all oooh-scary or something.”

“He could be,” says Hannibal. “If properly motivated.”

“Isn’t that true of everyone?”

“Yes. Of course it is.”

“Yeah.”

“So. Shall we celebrate your triumphant return?”

“What did you have in mind?”

“I am afraid that breakfast is off the table. There are meetings first thing tomorrow between liaisons from the local departments and Mr. Graham’s team. I would be remiss if I did not attend.”

“Okay.”

“Lumen? Are you all right?”

“Yeah.” She sighs. “Yeah, I’m all right. Why do you ask?”

“Forgive me. It is true that you and I don’t know each other well, but…you seem unsettled.”

“I’ve only been here one full day. Yeah, I’m…disjointed. Before that, I was on the road; before _that_ —ˮ

“Was when you and I met.”

“Yes. You and I met.”

“Our meeting set things in motion for you.”

“If what you mean by ‘setting things in motion’ is ‘blowing up my whole life,’ then yeah. But I wanted to do that anyway. Spending time with you just gave me the motivation to do it.”

“I’m glad I could do that for you.”

“Me too.”

Hannibal pauses.

“What?”

“Listen to me. Will you listen?”

“Yeah, of course I will.”

“You do not owe Dexter your body or your time, Lumen. That you are free now does not carry a secret price. Freedom was freely given to you—and freely taken by you. It’s yours now, to do with as you please.”

“I-I know.”

“Is it hard for you to be back here? What happened to you in this place…did it change the meaning of the land? Did it overwrite the ocean scent, the heaviness of flowers carried by the wind?”

A sudden, vicious sting floods her eyes. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“It’s all right. It’s something that happens. It is perfectly normal, and you can undo all of it…but it takes time.”

Tears burn down over her face. “Yes…yes, I think so, I feel it sometimes, like a thing that waits until the right thing comes along…the way the light looks, or a smell, or some tree or something that looks a certain way…that makes a shape in the dark and I can hold it back.” She sniffs. “But my hands get slippery.”

“You belong to yourself and only to yourself. Those men could take from you, but they could not take you. Dexter can give to you, but he cannot give you yourself.” Hannibal lowers his voice. “Are you crying?”

“Yes.” Her jaw is tight, her teeth bared. “Y-Yes.”

“I’m sorry.”

“N-No, it’s okay…it’s okay, it feels good.” She hiccoughs. Her breathing spasms. Through the wet, she starts to smile. “It feels so good.”

“I would like to see you.”

She wipes her cheeks. “Now?”

“Yes. Now. May I?”

“I-I don’t…I…I need a shower. I look like shit.”

“That doesn’t matter to me.”

“I wouldn’t want to be an imposition,” she whispers.

"You wouldn't be."

“I’m okay.” She wipes her eyes. “I don’t need to be taken care of.”

“With all the respect in the world, I’m going to have to disagree. Helping you…that is something I can do. Please,” he murmurs. “Allow me this small thing.”

She rubs her face. “You’re right, I’m…I-I’m not what I could be right now. It feels weird, being here again. It feels…strange somehow, like coming home, but…but not.” She wipes her nose. “It’s like I’ve been granted this unbelievable grace, a second chance, whether I have earned it or not.”

“Grace does not need to be earned. Would you like me to pick you up?”

“No, I…I’m okay to drive. I’ll meet you.” She stands. “Where are you staying?”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I’ll be okay.”

“Do you know the Biltmore?”

“Um…yeah, I think so.” She lingers by the water, listens to its soft undulation against the concrete. “That’s the big pink fancy one in Coral Gables, right?”

He chuckles. “I have heard it described as such, yes. Can you find your way?”

“I think so.”

“It’s quite dark in this part of the city, and the streets are difficult to navigate by night. I’ll send a taxi, if you prefer.”

“No…no.” She holds out her hand and shakes her head; her eyes are closed, the tears beginning to dry up. “Look, I’m fine.” Lumen turns her back on the water. “I’ll be fine. Really.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. If you…if you want to get dinner sometime, let me know. Okay?” She walks to the white path, moves into the orange light cast down by the floods. “I’ve had a long day. I think I should just go back inside, have a hot bath, and call it a day. I appreciate your offer to help, I do. It means a lot.”

“Think nothing of it.”

“I think I’m…I’m just going to get my own hotel room for awhile. I need space.”

“Of course you do. If you feel I have overstepped my bounds, I apologize. That was not my intent.”

“I’ve spent most of the day out in the sun and I’m not used to it.” She laughs; the sound of it rises up to the brink of delirium and falls back, settles into wearied chuckling. “I’m so sun-stupid right now, still. I’ve got this raging sunburn on the top of my head. Really, I’m too tired for much of anything.”

“I only want what is best for you.”

Lumen inhales. The scent of the sea, the richness of gardenias, rain, cut grass, the odors of flowers she does not know opening themselves to the night, all of it comes to her senses. They fill her, lift her mind out of the drunk sunlight still trapped in her flesh.

“Me too,” she says. “And that’s sleep. And orange juice. And more sleep.”

“Then I shall not stand between you and sleep a moment longer,” he says. “Good night.”

“Good night, Hannibal.”

“I’ll be in touch.”

“Good.” She smiles. “I look forward to it.”


	12. Will Fucking Graham

_I find the details of this case rather fascinating, but whether or not I am to participate in a more official capacity is strictly at the discretion of Will Graham_

Just the thought of his name makes her flinch. It is a shrinking away, the expectation of a blow.

Lumen puts her phone in her pocket. She turns, the wind at her back, and looks up at the windows of Dexter’s apartment. She tucks her hair behind her ears. Sighs. So much warm light.

She climbs the stairs up to the second level, moves back toward the distant glitter of water; she walks the long balcony to the door.

She opens it, steps in. All the lamps are on; they gleam on the pale hardwood floors. Dexter looks up. He’s sitting as his desk, laptop open. The blue light of the screen washes up over his face.

Lumen gives him a brief smile. “Hey.”

“Wow.”

She pauses. “What?”

“That’s quite a sunburn.”

“Yeah.” She reaches up, touches her face. She laughs. “I, um, went to the beach for part of the day.” She smiles. “I couldn’t resist it. What can I say. I missed the ocean.”

“So I see.” He nods. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah.” She kicks off her sandals, walks into the kitchen. “I think so.” She opens the fridge. “That friend I mentioned before? Kind of pushy.”

“Oh.” Dexter lifts his eyebrows. “I see.”

“I don’t like being pushed.”

“I remember. I pity the fool.”

“Yeah.” A grin flashes across her face as she opens a can of orange soda. “So what are you doing?”

“Oh…this? Research.”

Lumen takes a sip. She leans into the refrigerator. “You’re going after him, aren’t you. The mermaid guy.”

Dexter holds up his hands. He grins. “Guilty as charged.”

She straightens up, walks into the living room. She drops down onto the couch. “What do you have to do on?”

“Not much to start.” Dexter looks at the screen. His fingers tap the keyboard. “Your man Graham thinks the guy’s a commercial fisherman, or maybe a sport fisherman. Possibly retired Navy. Those are the guys who have the access to the needed equipment, the privacy to kill in this fashion, and the knowledge of shark fishing in general.” Dexter pauses. “In his opinion.”

This time, when it lands, his name feels like poking a bruise. She bites her lip.

“Sounds like you’re not too impressed with my man Graham.” Lumen folds her legs, stares at the wall. Takes a drink. The soda can numbs her fingertips. “Though I really wish you’d stop calling him that.”

“Well…” Dexter double-clicks. “It’s more that I think he’s holding something back.”

Lumen turns sideways on the couch. She leans into the back of it, looks at him through the bookshelf. She slurps stray droplets from the top of the can. “Why do you say that?”

“Dunno. Just a feeling.”

She puts the can on the coffee table. “So what do you think?”

“I think he’s probably right. But it’s only half-right. That he would need to know something about fishing is pretty obvious. What about surgical knowledge? Maybe he’s a surgeon, or has had some sort of surgical training. Maybe he’s a taxidermist.” Dexter turns the laptop around. “Ever heard of the Feejee Mermaid?”

Lumen leans forward and tilts her head, searches for a clear line of sight. “Yeah, I think so.” She sits back. “It’s a gaff, right? A taxidermied fake.”

“Yep.”

She picks the can back up. “So you think that maybe this guy drew his inspiration from this instead of whatever it is you think Graham is holding back.”

“Yep. That covers it.”

Lumen looks into the can. “Maybe he isn’t holding anything back.” She shrugs a shoulder. “Maybe he’s just slow.” She takes a long drink. “Maybe he’s not even really that good and it’s all…I don’t know, inflated reputation.”

“No. No. He is really that good.” Dexter spins the laptop back around. “His record is impressive. That’s what makes him dangerous. You’re right to be nervous about him.”

“You’re going to have to be extra careful, then.” Lumen takes a drink and looks at him. “Don’t you think?”

“Yeah. I dodged Lundy back when he was hunting Trinity, but it was still a lot of work.” Dexter tilts his head and makes a face. “Though hopefully Graham will manage to keep his hands out of my sister’s pants. That made things really weird.”

She snorts. “He’s so not her type.”

He snorts. “Neither was Lundy.”

“Oh come on. Have you seen him?” Lumen fiddles with the tab. “He’s, like, Tweedy McQuiet Mr. Bookworm Professor Nerd Man. He’s got the nerd glasses and everything.” She laughs. “Deb would never. Not in a million years.”

“You never saw Lundy.”

“Yeah, I know.” She puts the can down on the shelf. She looks at it. “He was like old enough to be her father or something.”

“Yeah. Or something is right.”

“Well, there’s none of that daddy vibe stuff coming off Will. The scary tweedy profiler man. Mr. Graham. Whatever. So. Yes, it’s just a guess, but I think that’s probably a low-risk situation.”

“Will?” Dexter’s eyebrows go up. He glances at her. “So he’s Will now? When did that happen?”

“What?” She presses her cold fingers to her sunburned cheeks. “That’s his name, isn’t it? We really don’t have to walk around going ‘Will Graham, Will Graham, Will Graham’ all the time.” She touches the can to both sides of her face. “You could also call Lundy by his first name, you know, if you wanted to. It is his name.”

“Please don’t make me.”

She takes a drink. “I think Deb is safe from Will Graham.”

“Well, you never know.” Dexter looks up from the screen, flashes her a brief grin. “Looks can be deceiving. You never can tell.”

“I just…” She makes a face. “I don’t see it.”

“Well,” he shrugs, “she’s gotten a taste for profilers, so…”

“Gross! That’s such a gross way of putting it, like it’s blood in the water or something.” She starts to laugh. “Okay. Sure.” She flips a hand. “Cause once you go profiler, you never go back. Right? Do you think we can get back on track please?”

Dexter closes the laptop. “Do you want to help me?”

Lumen’s hands, holding the soda can, drop into her lap. Her voice quiets. “You mean help you do the thing?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know. Maybe. It’s not like you need a lot of help right now. There’s nothing to do yet.”

“No. Not yet. But there will be.”

“I want to think about it.” She looks out the window. “I don’t know if getting in the middle of this is a good idea.”

“Because of Graham. Sorry. Will.”

“I know we’ve talked about this,” she says, flicking at the soda’s tab, “and that he’s probably nothing to worry about.” She looks up. “But I don’t want to take the chance.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask.” Dexter watches her face. “Did something happen? In Minneapolis? You seem different.”

“What do you mean?” Lumen starts to laugh. She rubs the back of her neck and shakes her head. “Like what?”

“Something…” He makes circles with one hand, lifting his eyebrows. “Killing-related?”

“No!” She makes a face. “No.” She picks up her soda can and looks at it, swirls the liquid still inside. “I stopped doing that when I left you.”

The corners of his mouth twitch. “Did you stop wanting to?”

She stops. Flicks her eyes to his. “Most of the time.”

“You want to tell me what that means?”

“It means what it means.” She finishes off the soda, tosses the can into the trash. “Of course I thought about it.” She folds her arms. “That’s the kind of thing you never stop thinking about.”

“You didn’t do anything while you were there?” He shakes his head. “Nothing that might alert Graham—ˮ Dexter lets out a sharp sigh, closes his eyes. “Will, rather. Sorry. To your…adventures?”

“No, nothing.” She turns her face away. She tightens her lips. “You don’t have to call him Will if you don’t want to.”

“Good. Because I don’t.”

Her head whips around. “What is your problem?”

“My problem?” Dexter pushes the chair back, stands. He circles around the desk. “Why can’t I help but feel like you’re not telling me things? Because that’s what it feels like, Lumen. That you’re not telling me things.”

She sighs. “There is nothing to tell you. I didn’t kill anyone in Minneapolis.” She takes a breath, rubs her forehead. “There’s nothing like that going on. You don’t have to worry.”

He tosses his hands up. “What are you even doing here?” He shrugs, stops, turns around. “You don’t seem to want me. You know, you know,” he goes on, holding up a hand, “and that’s okay if you don’t, you don’t have to. I’m not saying that. I don’t want you to feel that way, like I’m saying that. But you come back here after…what, nine months? A year? Have gone by, out of the blue, no word. I heard nothing from you until you were scared shitless. And then you’re at the state line, telling me that you’re on your way back. I thought permanently, but now I don’t know.”

She presses her mouth into the back of her hand. “Yes.”

“Why now?”

“I wanted to come back!” Her eyes fill with tears. “Coming back here has been all I have been able to think about since I left. I dreamed about it. Everything about Miami…it haunted me. I couldn’t shake it. I didn’t want to, I thought I should, so I…settled down into the little fucking cabin in the woods and I tried. And I failed,” she hisses, through clenched teeth. “That was my failure. So I came back here, because there was nothing else for me to do.”

“You come through my door,” he goes on, voice rising, “all freaked out, panicking your brains out over Will Graham.” His voice drops. “What am I supposed to think of that? The only reason you called me after months and months of not talking is that you saw Will Graham in Minnesota. You were terrified. And here we are, you’re here, and he’s here, and we’re still talking about—still panicking about—Will fucking Graham. I’m sorry, Lumen, really. If it’s all the same to you, I don’t want to talk about Will fucking Graham anymore.”

“Fine!” Lumen jumps to her feet. “Think whatever you want about it! I’m scared. He still scares me. Oh, I’m sorry…that’s right, you don’t get scared, do you? Not like normal people do.”

“Oh, I’m scared plenty. I just handle it better than you do.”

“Why don’t you just…go and take him out, then? Isn’t that how you solve all your problems?”

“It’s how I solved your problems, isn’t it? Back then you liked it just fine.”

She gets into his face. “Fuck you.”

“Fuck me.” He lets out a bitter laugh. “Yeah. Fuck me. Fuck me, all right. As I recall you liked that just fine, too.”

“Oh, oh…okay. Okay. So is that what this is about?” She rolls her eyes and folds her arms. “I’ve been here twenty-four hours and I haven’t fucked you yet? You know, Dex, you didn’t used to be this much of an asshole.”

“What?” His mouth drops open. “So…now you think this is about _sex_? What the fuck?”

“I don’t know, is it?” Her mouth slants into a bitter smile. Her brow furrows. She folds her arms, cocks her hip. “Are you…are you jealous of Will Graham?”

“Oh please. That,” he says, pointing a finger at her, “is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. Hell, it’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever said.”

She puts her hands on her hips and deepens her voice, makes the tone mocking. “’Don’t talk about him anymore, Lumen. I don’t want to call him by his first name.’” The tone changes into a high-pitched whine: “’I don’t want to talk about Will Fucking Graham anymore!’”

“I don’t!”

“Well I’m scared! He freaked me the fuck out!” She sticks out her chin. “I’m sorry. Everything isn’t about you, okay?”

“Do you want me to kill him?” Dexter leans in, brings his face close to hers. “You know, I almost think you do.”

“No!” Lumen recoils. “That…that would be stupid and it…it would solve nothing, and help no one, and it would make all kinds of trouble. Just take a few minutes here and imagine the manhunt that would happen because of that. No. No. I do not want you to kill Will Graham.” She lets out a sharp sigh, rolls her eyes. “Under no circumstances. No. Don’t be stupid, Dex.”

“Well…what am I supposed to think?”

Lumen lets out a hard sigh, starts to turn.

“No,” he says, taking hold of her chin and redirecting eyes to his. “Don’t you do that. You look at me. Is that what you want?”

She closes her eyes. “I said—ˮ

“I’m not asking about the risks. I know those already. Do you think I didn’t start calculating them that night, when you called me, in hysterics? No. I want to know what you want.” He shakes her face. “Open your eyes, Lumen. Do you want me to do this?”

Lumen’s eyelashes lift. Her chin quivers. “No,” she whispers.

He lets go of her face. He studies her expression.

“Stop doing that.” She takes a step back. “Stop trying to read me.” She shields her face with one hand. “I know that’s what you’re doing.”

“I’m not as good at it as you think I am, so don’t worry. I have no idea what you’re thinking right now.”

Lumen steps back. She hugs herself, looks around. Her arms loosen. She starts to turn. “I’m going to go.”

“Go? What do you mean, go?”

“I mean go,” she says, grabbing her purse off the counter. “I’m going to get a hotel room. I need space.” She gestures at him. “You need space, too.” She yanks an elastic off her wrist, gathers up her hair. “Obviously.”

“You don’t have to go.”

“No, I don’t, but I should. I’m going to get a room somewhere, I don’t know, and take a couple of days and then I’ll look for my own place. I’ve still got some money.” She half-laughs, half-cries. “I mean, it’s not like I spent any of it the last time I was here, right?”

“I…I guess.”

Lumen wipes her nose and shoulders her purse. She heads for the door. “This place is too small, anyway.” She halts, turns, heads into the bedroom where she grabs her backpack. “There’s not enough room here for you and Harrison, let alone me too.”

“Is this what you want?”

“This is the right thing.” She looks at him, brushes a wisp of hair out of one eye. “You know it and I know it.”

“I don’t, actually.”

“Dexter.” She sighs. “Come on. This isn’t good. If I’m going to stay here more than a night, we need to be sure of what’s going on between us. It isn’t fair—to anyone—otherwise.”

“What do you want from me? I mean…what am I to you? What do you want me to be? I don’t know. I thought maybe you wanted things to be the way they were, and if not that’s fine, like I said, but…Jesus, don’t leave me hanging here, okay?”

Lumen sighs. “I don’t know. What I need most right now is a close friend. A good friend. You’re more than a friend, though, it’s like…we did those things together, and that makes us more like family. A weird…I don’t know, murder family. Wait.” She grins. “That’s really weird, isn’t it?”

He chuckles. “Yeah, a little.”

“So I don’t know.” She bites a corner of her bottom lip. “I want to still have a relationship with you, I just don’t know what kind.”

“That’s honest,” he says. “Thank you.”

“I don’t want to use you just to feel comfortable,” she goes on, reaching over. She touches his face and smiles a little. “Even though it would be easy to fall back into old patterns.”

“No. I don’t want to use you, either.” He sighs. “It would be easy. And nice.”

She nods, eyes closed. “It would be.” She opens them. “But I don’t want to be those people.”

He lets out a heavy breath. “Me either.”

Lumen goes to him, puts her arms around him. He hugs her tight. Tears spill over, slide down her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.

He holds the back of her neck. “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s…not. It’s not.” She shakes her head, covers her eyes with one hand. “I didn’t mean to be so loud.”

“He’s still asleep,” says Dexter, kissing her forehead. He releases her. “So no harm no foul.”

“I’ll call you,” she says, “when I find somewhere. When I settle in. Okay?”

He smiles and nods, but the smile does not quite touch his eyes. “Okay.”

“I’ll text you,” she says, turning, her hand on the doorknob, “when I’m in for the night.”

He nods. “Okay.”

Lumen opens the door. She goes out onto the balcony, gasps the soft night air. The wind blows in off the water with its scent of salt, moves through her hair, stirs the palm fronds. 

A wave of dizziness comes and she takes hold of the railing, keeps her eyes closed. In the dark, she listens to her heart race. She measures her breaths. 

She waits for the dizziness to recede. 

When she opens her eyes she looks down, reflected water-light from the pool moving across her hands, her arms. It frosts the pale concrete with silver and blackens hot pink petals of bougainvillea. She shoulders her backpack, starts to walk. Her footfalls swell, trapped between the concrete floor and the overhead.

In the background, the constant whisper of the sea.

She walks to her car, exhaustion creeping in at the edges, a heaviness in her body borne of too much sun, hunger, the aftereffects of adrenaline. She tosses the backpack into the backseat, her purse onto the passenger seat. She climbs in. She rolls all of the windows down and sits, the direct line of wind from the sea cut into by the surrounding buildings. She peers up at the sky through the windshield; it is cloudless, humid, formless dark stained yellow and purple at the seams, where it touches the land.

Lumen starts the engine.

She backs out of the parking space and finds her way back into the currents of Miami traffic: too bright, too fast, the landscape whipping past in tangles of neon, greenery, stucco painted in bright colors muted by the darkness and the sodium vapor lamps.

She drives until she finds herself close to the water again, in darkness, passing the slips and their boats, their gentle rocking. The smell of rain blows in off the water, slices through the car windows. It tugs her hair out of its messy bun. 

She finds an outdoor restaurant with a Mariachi band and pulls in. She leaves the car, is seated at a small glass-topped table with a bright green umbrella. She buys a virgin drink, a basket of fish tacos. She sits beneath the multicolored light of paper lanterns, wrapped in the rustle of banana plants, and picks at her food.

“Not that it isn’t good,” she murmurs. “It is.” She takes a messy bite, tastes the tang of lime and a kick of smoky peppers. “It’s delicious.”

She takes out her phone. She turns sideways in the chair, legs crossed. She waves the young waiter away as he approaches with a fresh basket of tortilla chips. She pulls up a search, puts the phone down, wipes her mouth. She takes a pen and notepad out of her purse.

Lumen makes a list. While she is writing, the waiter tries to bring her another drink. The song changes and a guy at the bar leaves, comes up to her table, tries to start a conversation with her.

She ignores him. She turns away, dials a number instead and holds the phone up to her ear.

“Hello,” she says, when the overnight desk clerk picks up. “I’d like to leave a message for Will Graham, please?”

The clerk looks at a computer screen, informs her that there’s no one registered by that name.

“Thank you.” Lumen hangs up. She crosses the first hotel off the list.

Six calls later, she waves the waiter over. He comes, asks if she wants another drink, if he can get her anything else.

“No,” she says. “I’ll just take the check. Thanks.”

She dials again. An overnight desk clerk picks up.

She pitches her voice a little higher, puts on a Southern accent. “Hi, I’m looking to leave a message for Will Graham?” She laughs. “I keep thinking I have the right hotel, but I keep being wrong. You’re, like, the third person I’ve called tonight. I’m pretty sure he said LaQuinta, but unfortunately for me he didn’t specify which one.”

There’s a pause. “Wait.”

Lumen props the phone between her chin and shoulder and she takes out her wallet, pulls loose a twenty.

The clerk comes back on the line. “I’m supposed to ask for your name.”

Lumen hangs up the phone. She tucks the twenty into the folder, circles the seventh hotel on the list, tucks the list into her pocket, and picks up her purse.

She takes her phone off the table:

_[Me: I’m in for the night. Lunch thoughts? Don’t text me if this woke you up. We’ll talk tomorrow.]_


	13. Civil Twilight

“I’m sorry I have to feed you this crap.” Will lies on his side on the floor, cheek on bicep. He reaches out, strokes with a fingertip the fur between each kitten’s ears. “When I get you home I’ll make you something good. Okay?”

They sit at the rim of a paper bowl, tiny bodies hunched close. Cheek to cheek, they wolf down chunks of canned meat.

It’s late. The weariness of the hour creeps into him; passing minutes try to sing him to sleep, but his mind will have none of it.

He turns onto his back. At floor level, beneath the hum of the vents, the sounds of kittens eating sounds like a pride of lions ripping apart the corpse of an antelope. He puts his arm over his eyes. He’s tired, his muscles twitch, he wears his skin like a garment gone weak at the seams—he clenches, each second is like the slow tickle of loose hairs, stray feathers, frayed tags. He longs for stillness.

He clenches his jaw, breathes through his nose. In his mind, he begs for calm. The need for it fills his mouth, trembles at the brim of his lips.

_This guy, I think…I think there’s something smooth about him. Unhurried. Like he’s got no worries, and the only thing I can think of that would generate that sort of confidence in the nature of time is money. I would’ve made him out to be mid-thirties, maybe up to mid-forties—no more than that because this guy is strong, his body is still with him, he doesn’t have arthritis or heart problems—and he needs brute strength to do what he does. But I think maybe this guy short-circuited the usual path to self-control—a passage of years—with piles and piles of money. When you’re rich, and we’re talking filthy lucre, it doesn’t matter. None of it matters. You can always buy more time. You can always buy a bigger boat._

He swallows. Sparks go off in the big muscles of his thighs, fizzle down the insides of his legs. His toes twitch.

_But it does matter, a little. It matters here, in this scheme of things. Because money cannot buy self-control, nor can it buy skill, nor patience. If he’s young, he’s going to make mistakes._

The kittens wander away from their bowl. They go short distances away, contort themselves to bathe.

“I hate this job,” he murmurs.

_Because that’s what we need—at the end of the day—is for a killer to make a mistake. For him to leave his fucking breadcrumbs, to make a trail back to whatever fucked-up neural crossroads in his brain steered his life down a charnel road. I can catch him, I can catch them; I can take it, whatever it is, and hold it up to a mind-map and make it make sense. But, at the end of the day, the true worth of my salary is paid in corpses._

The wood creaks outside the door.

“I know it’s you,” he murmurs. “The floors in this building are too new to creak. They could bear even your completely improbable weight. So, before someone like Dr. Lecter comes along and suggests that I ask: what is it that you want?”

Shadows slide under the door, slant crossways over Will’s face. He hears a soft snort. He imagines the animal lowering its huge head, nostrils laboring to catch his scent.

“What do you want?”

The answer floods his brain, slices thin images and spreads them out in a fan: a stillness of water, wings settling against a crow’s back, blood on the snow. Crackling fire. The shapes of trees, made mysterious by fog.  


One of the images is more vivid than the others. It climbs up out the dark and he falls into it, the scent of it dancing into him, dragging its little flashes of revelation like skirts: pale hands, skin thickened with blood and buried in viscera; they press close together, plunge in one over the other. Ropes of bowel pile up out of a wound, translucent, slippery, still pink and blue and lurid with life. These hands, older than his. The bones are thickened, tendons ropy, the skin woven with veins like vines. Hauling them out, the entrails. These reddened hands tingle over the shapes of Will’s fingers, press close to his callused palms. They embrace his long white wrists.

“I…I-I don’t,” Will sighs, brows furrowing. He tosses his head. “Never mind.”

The wood creaks.

Will rubs his face against the back of his wrist. “You can go away now.”

He listens until the breathing is gone, until the shadows move on. 

He concentrates on the sea. He summons a vision out of the backs of his red lids and sees it, the sun like needles where its bright, here is the color of the sea as it is in the shallows: the light blue-green of the Keys, with its dark patches of coral and the thin wings of white foam driven into the surface by the wind. He starts to add a boat, to draw a curtain of night across the sky.

The vision fights back.

He sees the beach, pale water, seaweed, he smells it cooking beneath the sun. Even the water is flat; all of the land falls into a swoon beneath the heavy heat of summer.

At first the picture is too bright, warm. He sees her, at first her movement, the design of her body printed against the land, the notes of her rhythm scrawled in shadow across the sand. The sun comes, it illuminates her winter skin and casts a flush beneath the scattering of dark freckles on her chest. It turns them into a map of the night sky.

“Goddammit.” He opens his eyes. He shakes his head. “I can’t fucking think.” 

The white ceiling hurts his head, tightens the corners of his eyes until the slightest movement strums a dull note of pain. 

He squeezes them shut. 

_I can imagine this: bar light passing through the smoky amber of decent whiskey, it’s not excellent but it’s not bog water either. It sits swirling in a squat glass, light fractured by a handful of jagged cubes. They’re the kind prized free underneath the bar by a deft hand with an ice pick._

_I can imagine the first taste, its slow burn on the back of my tongue. The bloom of alcohol fumes rise up, slice through all of my moorings. It’s a blade that caresses, it’s so sharp that in the beginning there’s no pain, only a kiss, a tingle, a throb before two things part forever. Before the blood comes._

Heat rushes into his skin. His flanks tighten; a fine tremble spreads down, coils into his belly. It burrows beneath his hipbones. It curls around his inner thighs.

_But, right now, I cannot imagine you…y-you salt-crusted, twisted, filthy rich murderous fuck._

He hears the quick soft scamper of paws, the hitch of nails in the carpet. Whiskers flutter across his cheek. They scrape around the damp velvet point of a nose.

“Hello, kitty,” he murmurs. He smiles. “What are you doing?”

It jumps onto his chest.

“Okay,” he chuckles. “Okay.”

_Why would she think I was following her?_

Will opens his eyes.

In his mind’s eye, he sees her long blonde hair yanked back toward the land. She stands, eyes turned up, her gaze pressed hard to his face. Those long dark eyes, horizons full of night. The bold bones of her face. Her small pink mouth, parted and trembling at him.

_She wants to be a broken bird but she can’t. Another thing coils inside her skin, takes the place of wings. Trembling in its fear, it learns me through the touch of its eyes. It lies in wait. Knows my topography by heart. Though it has been subdued by light, made lazy by the heat, is still dangerous._

Her remembers her phone, white-knuckled. Her longs arms tense. As though she might haul back, swing, and shatter the screen against the side of his face.

He presses the heels of his hands to his temples.

“What have you done, what thing in your life, to earn the fear of my interest?”

He feels her breath in his ear. He closes his eyes, imagines her standing on tiptoe to do it. He is aware of the nearness of her body, her sinister skin like the approach of night.

His body twists from side to side, slow. He tries to throw the images off but they cling to him.

Civil twilight, dark stars, a violet hour burned into her by the fierce love of the Florida sun. Her voice is low, husky, curling like smoke against the side of his face: _Why don’t you back me into a corner and find out?_

Her mouth quivers, caught between the rapid pulse of his breath and the sloppy elision of hers. A trapped thing. Out of somewhere comes her face beneath his hands. It presses into his palms, the skin radiating heat trapped beneath it, like a fever. He brings his mouth close to hers, he does not kiss her when she parts her lips, when uses the sway of her weight to try and make him fall. Even when she whimpers for it, claws at him, he doesn’t. He shoves fingers into the rough silk of her hair, makes fists. He inhales her, speaks into her open mouth. He slings heavy breath against her teeth. _Why would I want to do that?_

On the other side of flesh, his hand crawls down the front of his zipper. He keeps his eyes shut against the light, the room, the buzzing of the bulbs, the pine smell of the bathroom with its shivering air. The kitten jumps off him. He brushes her away, grips his thickening cock through his pants.

_I can imagine this: Alana, her little-girl eyes, the luminescent ones she puts on just for me. She, adrift in country darkness, the softness in her mouth just so, the angle of her look just so, the muted colors touching down on her white skin. Fluttering. How still she went that night, caught in my approach like an animal—something small and soft and dumb—her body trembling, swollen with the burst of adrenaline its flesh didn’t know how to use._

His hand trembles, fingers curling.

_She accepted my kiss—breathed her fleeting surrender—out of fear._

In his mind, Lumen looks up. She’s soaked in moonlight instead of sunlight. She wears grown-woman eyes, their darkness made darker, belladonna eyes dilated with the kind of desire that’s like thirst, hunger, it’s the kind of thing a body will struggle against until it cannot, until it is undermined by itself and the weakness comes. 

_Hunger, thirst_ , he thinks, _when they are lifted out of the everyday, when they are driven past the extreme, they will make cannibals of us all._

It happens in a moving dark, a departure of the sun built from layers of slowly thickening shadow. He looks down. Hears water murmuring somewhere, inhaling and exhaling with the tide. Starlight picks out the long shapes of her thighs and her hands are on his body, fingertips like coals inside his clothes; she unzips, takes him out. The red on her lips makes them easier to see. She inhales his cock like oxygen and he fills her mouth, her throat, until a low rich moan brews in her lungs. It wells up, spills from her nose and it’s so hot, scalding; her mouth floods his mind.

Hurried, frantic, his fingers stumble over themselves to yank down his zipper. He breathes hard and arches his back, one hand working itself down into his pants.

In his mind, the loosened fall of her hair covers his face. It traps his breath, makes it struggle against the silken strands caught in his mouth, in his nose.

He digs three fingers deeper into her pussy, he pants, speaks in a low murmur: _Is it better to out-monster the monster?_ He feels her gasp, slick walls tightening around his knuckles. Her hips move from side to side. He cradles the back of her head with his other hand, presses his lips to her temple: _Or to be quietly devoured?_

She bumps into him and giggles and there’s a burst of heat on his chest, her mouth crashing open against the skin. _Nietzsche said that._

A flood of wet rides his fingers, slips between them and he smells her, raw and tidal, her wild breath like flowers and brimstone, her hair still clinging to a babyfresh trace of shampoo. The hot meat of her body pulses with the rhythm of her erratic, half-drowned laughter.

He takes hold of her hair, pulls her head back, whispers: _Yes_. He leans his forehead into hers, his breath running away from him; he looks into her eyes and moves his thumb against her clit. The rush of sensation trembles at the corners of her mouth, breaks across her face. _Yes_ , he pants, mouth approaching hers. He speaks, the words caught in his teeth, into the force of her breath. _He did_.

Will yanks his shirt up past his ribs. The heat builds in his skin, flushes his face, pulses tight and hard at the core of his cock. He takes it in his hand. He strokes. His mouth opens. His eyes roll up.

_But…but why would she think I was following her?_

He pauses, breathing hard; he opens his eyes and finds the ceiling floating above him, lazy and drifting at the edges. His cheeks burn. His palm sweats against his cock.

_It’s okay, Will_. Lecter’s voice, prowling around the inside of his head. _This doesn’t mean anything. It is merely a fantasy conjured in the heat of a moment to assist a particular biological function._

He wipes sweat of his hairline with the back of a trembling wrist. “With all due respect, Doctor,” he mutters, “you can fuck off now.”

Will takes deep breaths. He turns onto his side, bends his limbs, pushes himself to his feet in increments. He walks to the bed, one hand held out between his eyes and the bright spill of the bedside lamp. He switches off the lamp. The room exchanges its clinical whiteness for a pale blue-gray that is like water climbing the walls.

He strips off his clothes; they are too heavy on him, they hang too close to the skin. He peels the covers back. Climbs onto the bed. Turns onto his back. Breathes. Kitten claws scratch their way up the side of the mattress.

“Hi,” he sighs, turning his face into warm kitten fur. He runs a lazy thumb up and down the underside of his cock. The kitten starts to purr. He smiles a little. “I don’t know if you want to be up here right now.”

The kitten wriggles her way up over his head, snuggles down between the pillow and the headboard.

“Strange.” His eyes start to twitch. “Weird little beast.”

He falls asleep. He stutters into a dream, it comes like flashing shadows over him, glides on wings. He feels it in his blood. There is a lot of blood. It’s hot, thick; it stinks of brimstone and clings like salt to his lips.

_I want to be awake_. He pushes at the black, makes an effort, but sleep is too heavy. The back of his head, his jaw, one side of his face feel numb. He touches them and senses the pillow beneath, the sheets, a trace of detergent with a smell like industrial-grade flowers.

_Why would I follow you? Why would I? Why would I follow you? Why would I?_

“Who are you?”

The sound of his voice, rusty, clogged with spit, digs into the black and makes it fall away. He opens his eyes and he’s in the room, but the layout is different, the light is different: here, on the walls, a spill of long reddish light, orange, it makes him pink, it weakens the shadows cast by the furniture until they are long, purple, spun-out, thin. On one wall there is a stone fireplace like the fireplace he has at home. Antlers grow out of the ceiling, dead lightbulbs affixed to their tips. The floors are smooth tile. It’s hard to move. Coils of sleep hold him down, keep him still, an anchor. Outside the window, he hears the low murmuring rush of the ocean. The wind comes. It gushes, smells like fish. It flips aside the heavy hotel curtains.

A long white arm shoots through the window, folds at the wrist. It grasps at one of the moving curtains.

Will lifts his head.

Lumen crawls in. She’s wearing a long thin torn-up dress, it’s white cotton; sunset light slices through it, carves her shape out of the dark. He watches her. His eyes follow her becoming, the way she unfolds into, becomes part of, the space. With a languid stretching movement she throws off the dress. 

He looks at her nipples. His mouth waters. “Who are you?”

She tilts her head. “You already know.”

“No.” He shakes his head. “I don’t. I…I-I really don’t.” He swallows. “I know I don’t,” he whispers.

“Shhhhhhh shhh shh shhh,” she breathes, finger over her lips; she draws close, glides through the stew of light. Her shadow touches him, slides across his skin, blocks out the searing pink that pours out of the window. Her knee touches down on the edge of the bed. Her hair, stained orange, drags across the bedspread. “Yes, you do.”

He drinks in the curves of her body. He licks his lips. “I am so hard right now.”

“I know.”

“No, really. It actually hurts.”

“I know.”

She straddles him, crawls up toward his face. The tips of her hair do their feather-dance up his hip, belly, across his chest; it plucks his nerves, dissolves him into wracking shivers, avalanches of hot icy pinpricks knocking the joints of his bones together. His breath goes ragged. He stares at her, into her dark eyes. He grabs onto the bedspread, makes fists. 

“I feel that everywhere,” he gasps, arching his throat. His mouth falls open. He rides out the mindless twist of his spine. “I feel everything everywhere.”

She arches her back, slides down onto her forearms. She brings the heat of her mouth right to the rim of his. “I know,” she murmurs.

He creases his brow. He whimpers. “Who are you?”

“Once upon a time,” she murmurs, trailing hot puffs of breath along the line of his cheekbone, “not so long ago, I did a very bad…bad…” 

She licks the sweat off his temple. The wet velvet sensation shoves a white hot blade of lust into his groin. 

“…bad thing.”

He grips her thighs, grits his teeth. “W-Why?”

“Shhhhhhh,” she sighs, running the tip of her nose down the bridge of his. “Shhh shh shhh.”

He grabs her face, drags her mouth into a kiss. He yanks on her hair. The flats of his teeth grind into her lips: “Git on my dick.”

She touches his cock with light fingers. His breath quickens. She angles her hips, slides down. He gasps, holds his breath for a quivering split-second, arches his throat. He grabs her ass, pulls her against him. He groans.

“So…do you think I’ve killed?”

“Y-Yes…yes!”

“Why would I do it?” She shifts, up and down, it’s a tiny movement, almost like a flutter. “What was my reason?”

“G-Gawd…I don’t know…I dunno…uh…I-I…” He arches his back, writhes; a long low moan scrapes up the back of his throat.

“Why…would…I…do…it?”

He opens his eyes. The light is hot, feverish, it gleams red on her skin and makes sparks in her eyes. The look in them is sharp. Water-light ripples across the ceiling. He struggles to move her body on him, to thrust. She wrestles his hands off her, grabs his wrists, holds them down.

“Scars,” he breathes, “you have scars on you, I’ve seen them, whoever put them there,” he gasps, takes a breath, “whoever put them there had to die. Had to. Didn’t they. They earned it. A lot of w-women poison, they like that, they don’t want to use their hands but they want to watch, but…but…” He pushes his feet into the bed, thrusts up into her. “N-Not…not you. Blood. You spilled it, wanted it, needed it fuck…gawd… _fuck_!”

“Your Looseyanna’s showing.” Her mouth blooms into a grin. “I like it.”

Will bolts up out of sleep, abrupt, intense pleasure quivering in the pit of his belly. He startles awake, shrouded in sweat, the air is heavy and still and he fumbles around through the sheet and grabs his cock, strokes it with rapid hard strokes. He catches the receding wave of orgasm in his teeth, grunts, cries out with the force of it. 

He collapses back into ruined consciousness, woozy, his roughened breath the only sound, his hand disconnected from the rest of his body. Hand, crawling away from him. Hand, dragging the arm behind it. 

He gropes for a box of tissues. Kicks the wet sheet off him. Wipes the sticky globs out of his navel hair.

Will throws the tissues onto the floor. He’s hollowed out; there’s room for his exhaustion.

He maps out the topography of Lumen’s scars. He comes up with a belt, a whip, a long piece of wire. Something that cuts but when held by the hand.

_Those scars_ , he thinks, sinking back into the black. He hears the snores begin. The words follow him down, flutter to his feet. _They are no accident._


	14. The Thoughtful Application Of Semiosis

“Watch it—ˮ

Beverly stands half in and half out of the doorway, paper bags held in one hand and a cardboard drink tray in the other. She pauses, gives him a puzzled look.

“Dow…look…down—oh dammit, Stella.” Will runs haphazard fingers across his hair. “Jesus Christ.” He flaps his hands at the hallway. “Come in and close the door,” he says, crossing the room, angling his body to stride past her.

“Will, what are you doing?”

“Close the door, Bev!”

She comes into the room, closes the door. A fluffy black kitten slides out from beneath the bed’s dust ruffle, elongates its body in an almost comical stretch. It blinks sleepy eyes. It lifts its little tail, trots toward her.

“Oh my God.” Bev puts the bags and the coffee down on the desk. She squats, holds her hand out. “Are you fuckin serious. You are. You’re serious.” The kitten scampers over and sniffs her fingers.

“Bev.” Will knocks on the door. “Let me in, please?”

“Yeah.” She scoops up the kitten, holds it against her blouse. She opens the door. Lifts an eyebrow. Holds up the kitten. “Kittens?”

“Yeah,” he says, shouldering back into the room, Stella perched over one shoulder.

“Where did you find kittens? Wait.” She holds up a hand. “Don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.” She places her kitten on the bed. “How long have you had them?”

He shrugs. “Couple days.”

“Does the hotel know?”

Will works one of the coffee cups free of the carrier. “They say they’re pet friendly.”

“Yeah, sure, but I think they still want to know. What about housekeeping?”

He takes a tentative sip. “Do not disturb sign.”

“Uh huh.” She looks him over. “You ready to go?”

“Whenever you are.”

Bev sips her coffee. “So what are their names?”

“The one with the white on her chest is Stella. I haven’t come up with a name for the other one yet.” He glances at her. “They’re both girls.”

“Why not?”

“I dunno.” He shrugs. “When I look at her I don’t see anything obvious.”

“Stella is obvious?”

“The white on her chest.” He points. “It looks kind of like a star.”

Bev squints, tilts her head. “I guess maybe a big blobby one. If that’s what you want to see.”

His mouth tenses into a brief smile. “I guess it is what I want to see.”

Bev looks at the ceiling. She rubs her chin. “What about…Esmeralda?”

Will looks at the kitten. “Why?”

“Why not?” Bev picks up one of the bags. “It’s a cool name.”

He picks up the other bag. “Okay.” He opens it, pokes his nose in. “Is this one mine?”

“It is now that you’ve breathed all over it.”

He glances at her and wrinkles his nose. “Ha.”

“Come on,” she says. “Let’s go, Kitten Man.”

Will walks to the bathroom and sticks his head in, looks around. He turns off the light. He puts the TV on, switches the channel to the Shopping Network. He turns the volume down and tosses the remote back onto the bed.

Bev watches him. “What are you doing?”

“Checking their litter box and turning on the television.” He gives the look on her face a double-take. “What? It’s so they don’t get lonely during the day.”

“I don’t think you have to do that with cats,” she says. “Dogs maybe, but don’t cats like to be alone?”

“These guys don’t.” He lifts his eyebrows. “Maybe it’s because they’re babies?”

“I don’t know, maybe,” she mutters, heading for the door. She looks over her shoulder. “Ready?”

“Yeah, I’m still ready.”

Bev steps out into the hallway.

Will follows her, turning to peek through the narrowing gap in the door. “Don’t you even think about it. No. I said no.” He sticks the toe of this shoe in the gap. “Back up.”

Beverly watches him, her arms folded and her weight shifted to one side. A half-smile hovers over her mouth.

Will turns. “What?”

“You’re cute.”

He leans back, cheeks turning a slight pink. He starts to laugh and furrows his brows, tilts his head, rights it again. “Why…why do you say—?ˮ

“Calm down.” A sharpness creeps into the edge of her voice. “It’s not like I’m going to, I don’t know, jump you or anything.” The half-smile settles onto her mouth. “With animals, I mean. It’s sweet. I know you’ve got a bunch of dogs, too. You obviously care a great deal.”

Will shrugs. He shakes his head, glances at his feet. “Well I…I couldn’t just leave them there. You know?” He looks up, searches her eyes. “What else could I do?”

“Nothing.” She cuts her eyes away. She turns. “I think you did the right thing. Of course you did the right thing.” She starts to walk. “I still think you should tell the hotel, though. What if one of the maids goes in anyway and…I don’t know…calls the Humane Society or something?”

Will keeps up with her. “It hasn’t happened yet.”

She pushes a button for the elevator. “True.”

The doors open. Beverly steps in, moves into the corner. Will wanders in behind her, holding the bag open. He reaches inside. “What is this, exactly?”

“Bagel breakfast sandwich with egg and sausage.”

He pulls it out of the bag. “Thanks.”

She smiles at him, coffee cup held up by her chin. “You’re welcome.”

He unwraps it, takes a big bite. “You’re nice to me,” he says around a mouthful. “I appreciate it.”

“Yeeeeah.” She bends her knees, sticks out one leg, and knocks the toe of her shoe against the toe of his. “Don’t act like it’s such a hardship.” She grins. “You’re cool.”

He swallows, wipes his mouth. He looks down at the sandwich. He takes another bite. “I don’t know.”

“Well…I do.” She faces the doors, sips her coffee. “Thank God for that, right?”

The doors ding open.

“So, have you got the show all ready to go?”

Will pats his pocket. “Yes.”

“Is it, like, PowerPoint and everything?”

Will shoves the last of the bagel into his mouth. “Something like that.”

“Jimmy and Brian flew out this morning. Or,” she glances at her watch, “rather, they’re at the airport and enduring airport security. I still have cataloguing to do, so I’m out of here tomorrow.” She tosses her empty coffee cup into the trash. “You?”

“Yeah,” he says, sipping his coffee. “Me too.”

“I heard Dr. Lecter is staying at the Biltmore.” She shakes her head. “That place looks like a wedding cake.”

Will snorts. He crumples up the bag, tosses it into the trash. “I have to agree.”

Beverly looks at him.

Will meets her eyes, glances away, looks at her smile.

She bursts out laughing.

He starts to chuckle. “What’s so funny?”

“Just…I don’t know,” she says, pausing to put on her sunglasses. “Sometimes you crack me up.”

“What did I do?”

She chuckles. “If you have to ask, I guess you’ll never know.”

He rubs his eyes. “I’m too tired to laugh.”

They step out into the bright morning sun. It’s overcast, the light filtered by low-hanging clouds into a harsh white. The pavement is wet. The wind shakes raindrops off the palm fronds. It smells of flowers, salt, exhaust.

Beverly starts toward her car and turns. “Hey.”

Will stops at the sound of her voice, looks up. He turns around. “Yeah?”

“Good luck.”

“It’s not a class project.” His unsteady smile flickers on his face. “They’re not giving me a grade or anything.” It settles into a brief grin. “Luck isn’t necessary.”

“I want you to have some anyway.”

“Thanks.” He takes a step back. “See you later.”

“Later, Graham.” Bev turns. “Try to behave yourself.”

* * *

 

Lumen takes a table by the big windows so she can watch the harbor, the boats bobbing in their slips. She orders water with lime and a turkey sandwich.

“Sorry, running a little late.”

She turns. Dexter comes to the table, pulls out the chair across from her. “Traffic is bad. I think there’s an accident somewhere.”

“Hey.” She picks up her water glass, takes a sip. “How’s your day so far?”

“Can’t complain.” He picks up a menu. “They’re wrapping up the case today. The FBI.” He glances at her. “They’re giving their profile after lunch. My guess is they’ll all fly home to Quantico in the morning.”

Lumen puts the glass down. “That’ll be nice for you.” She looks at him. “Won’t it?”

“Yeah, totally. Deb has been pulling her hair out for the last four days. Oh. Did I tell you she got promoted?”

“No!” Lumen leans back in her chair. “That’s great.” She smiles. “Good for her.”

“Yeah. She’s lieutenant of homicide. She’s new at it, too; she’s only been in the office for a couple months. Big case like this lands on her desk and it’s chaos, and then of course we’ve got the FBI stepping all over everyone’s toes.” Dexter rolls his eyes. “She’s like a cat in a room full of rocking chairs right now.”

“I bet.” Lumen picks up her glass, looks out the window. “It’s not like the rest of Miami’s murderers have taken the week off.” She looks into his eyes. “Right?”

Dexter orders a chicken sandwich with chips and orange juice. “I’m curious about the profile,” he says. “I have to admit it.”

Lumen watches his face. “You think he’ll kill again?”

“Absolutely. He views himself as some kind of…” He lowers his voice. “Artist. He likes the taxidermy a little too much. He’s got a taste. He’ll be back.”

Lumen catches the straw in her mouth. She lifts her eyebrows. “Then so will the FBI.”

The waitress brings Dexter’s orange juice. He pulls a napkin from the dispenser, folds it into a coaster. “Yeah. How are you?”

“Good.” She smiles. “I got great sleep last night. I spent all morning looking for jobs. I found way more open positions than I expected.”

“Great. You apply?”

“Of course! Most of them are in the immediate area, but I found one in Ft. Lauderdale that I applied for and there’s one on Key Largo.”

“Key Largo.” He whistles. “Nice.”

“I know, right? I think the chances probably aren’t great, but I was like it’s worth a shot. You never know. I checked the rents and they’re not too bad for a one bedroom. Not as bad as I thought they would be, anyway.”

“It’s the cost of everything else that will get you.”

“Yeah. I know.” She chuckles a little, nods. “I figured that out pretty quick.”

“Those hospitals would be fortunate to have you as their administrator…staffer…coordinator.” He grins. “Whatever it is you do.”

“I do boring hospital or clinic administrative work that is boring,” she says, giggling. “To most people. I like it, though. Playing with numbers and graphs makes me happy.”

“Better you than me.”

“So…” She puts her elbows on the table, drops her face into her hands. “Got any plans tonight? I can’t remember the name of that Chinese place we used to order from, Golden Lotus or Dragon Lotus or whatever it was, but I was thinking of maybe picking some up.” She grins, pokes his wrist. “I could grab you some too, maybe swing by for a couple of hours?”

“I can’t,” he says, “dammit, because that sounds way better than this thing I let myself get talked into.” He sighs, rolls his eyes. “Jack Crawford, I think his name is? Anyway, he’s having some dinner thing tonight at some fancy downtown restaurant and LaGuerta told Deb she has to go and isn’t she pissed, too. She tried to get out of it. LaGuerta wouldn’t budge.” He laughs. “I don’t know if she’s more pissed off at the politics of it all or pissed off that she has to wear a dress. So she cornered me in my lab and begged me to go with her. A good brother doesn’t say no when his sister is on her knees. She also threatened my life.” He grins. “I said yes. She knows where I live.”

Lumen laughs. She covers her mouth. “Good thing.”

“I know, right?”

The food comes. The waitress sets each plate down, one at a time.

“Maybe tomorrow, then,” she says, unrolling her napkin.

He watches her. “Maybe.”

Lumen picks up her sandwich and takes a bite. “This is so good.” She wipes her mouth. “I’d forgotten how good this is.”

Dexter looks at her, a slight smile on his face.

She puts the sandwich down. “What?”

“Are you still scared?”

He puts her hands in her lap. She glances at the plate, out the window. “Of course I am.”

“How long will it take?”

She looks at him. “What do you mean?”

Dexter closes his eyes, exhales. “For you to not be scared anymore.” He opens his eyes. “Do they have to go?”

Lumen lowers her voice, yanks the napkin off the table. “We already had this conversation. I said no.”

“No no, that’s not what I mean.”

He puts a hand on hers. She flinches.

“I mean literally go. Fly home.”

She withdraws her hand. “They’ll go, and then when mermaid maker, taxidermist, whatever you’re calling him comes back,” she says, taking another napkin from the dispenser, “so will they.” She looks up. “That’s the way it is.”

“I don’t think there’s anything to worry about. They— _he_ —is way too busy with this guy to bother with you.” He pauses. “Or with me.”

She sighs, rubs her forehead. “I know.” She picks up her sandwich. “You’re probably right.”

“I’m glad you agree with me.”

“I do.”

He takes a bite of his sandwich.

Lumen’s phone buzzes. She picks it up off the table, turns it over. The bright light from the windows makes is hard to read the screen. She brings it closer to her face, squints. She unlocks the screen with her thumb.

_[Hannibal: Are you perchance free for dinner tonight?]_

She smiles, turns the phone sideways.

_[Me: Yes, as a matter of fact. When would you like to pick me up?]_

She puts the phone down. “My psychiatrist friend,” she says. “He wants to go out tonight.”

“And?”

She takes a bite of her sandwich. “I said yes.”

“Great.” Dexter looks at her, takes a drink of orange juice. “Have fun.”

She smiles. “I intend to.”

* * *

 

The overhead light buzzes, trapped in a perfect two-second cycle: flicker, hum, flicker. The angles and hard surfaces of the conference room change their dimensions slightly beneath the fluorescent’s cold spectrum. Glancing from glint to glint, reflected in glass, metal, the smooth white of the markerboard, exhausts him.

People stand around the room’s perimeter, making it smaller. They fill the corners with rumpled suits, bent elbows, tapping feet, murmured chatter.

Will rubs his eyes.

A slim brunette in a light gray pantsuit edges her way in. The perimeter shifts in her direction. She turns a white and crooked smile to everyone in the room.

“Lieutenant Morgan!” Jack looks around. “Is this everyone?”

“Yeah, yeah,” she says, wiping her palms on her hips. Her feet fidget as he looks around. “I think so.” She nods. “Sorry I’m late. I got hung up.”

“If you haven’t met already,” says Jack, holding his arms toward Will, “This is our psychological profiler, Will Graham. Will,” he holds a hand in Deb’s direction, “Lieutenant Debra Morgan.”

“We have, actually.” Will’s eyes flick to Deb; he gives her a quick nod. “Lieutenant.”

“Mr. Graham.” She smiles and nods, backs herself into a space near the door. “Go ahead. We’re ready whenever you are.”

“Great!” Jack claps his hands together. He beams at Will. “Well then, if everyone’s here let’s get this show on the road.”

“You’re the boss.” Will half-turns toward the projector screen. He glances at the remote in his hand. “Before I begin,” he continues, turning to face the front of the room, “Copies of this profile have been e-mailed to the heads of all departments. If, at any time, further questions arise, please do not hesitate to contact either Jack or myself at Quantico.”

“Mr. Graham,” says Deb, holding up a hand. “Now, is my copy exactly like this one? Down to every page, every detail, every image?”

“Yes,” says Will.

“Okay.” She smiles. “Great.”

Will clicks a button. The screen fills with a dirty torso lying face-up on honey-colored sand. The skin is pale, torn, bloodless. Chunks of fat have eroded out from beneath the sliced skin. Muscle tissue hangs below the waist in shreds. The insides of the forearms are pecked full of holes. The hair is blonde, matted into the sand by rain. The eyes are missing.

“Ashley Benton,” he says. “Twenty years old. The first victim. Found on the early morning of April 12 by vacationers on a beach outside of Newport, Texas. As you can see,” he clicks the button, “with Ashley, the work was, shall we say, less precise.”

The second slide shows a shark tail lying bottom-up on the sand, approximately eight feet away.

“In the cases of Jessica Flynn and Carolyn Fletcher, the tails were affixed to the torsos in layers. The bones, in this case the spine, coccyx, and bottom ribs, were affixed to the cartilaginous structures of the sharks using three-inch screws. Musculature was then grafted onto musculature with large cross stitches using multifilament fishing line. The skin layer was then sewn in tiny zigzag stitches with a translucent monofilament line.”

He clicks the remote. The faces of the Coral Gables victims fill the screen.

“In Texas, he did not bother with the screws. He used monofilament line for the muscle layers as well as the skin layer, and he used a small zigzag stitch on the fascia. Also, he did not bother with the teeth. Were the teeth an added flourish? Did he not have enough time in Texas to bother with the teeth? Perhaps there was no access to multifilament line.” Will shrugs. “I don’t know. Could be all of the above. Could be none of the above.”

He clicks the button, clears the screen. He faces the room.

“We are looking for a man in his thirties. He’s strong enough to handle a hundred-plus pounds of dead weight easily so he’s probably big and is definitely in exceptional physical shape. He is most likely white, but could be mixed-race. He grew up on these waters, knows them like the back of his hand. He’s been fishing these waters since—birth? Childhood? Most of his life. He’s familiar enough with the anatomy of fish to know which breeds are going to work for this sort of—I don’t know—gruesome experiment in taxidermy, and which ones won’t. He’s got his own boat. It’s commercial, it has to be in order to provide the room to do this kind of work. If it’s not, it’s big. Expensive.”

He clicks the button, turns around. A list with bullet points fills the screen.

“He is either retired, wealthy, or both. He doesn’t have time for work.” He swallows. “This. This is his work. Days…days upon days are spent hunting for the perfect woman. She has to be a certain weight, has to have a certain build. A specific skin color. And it’s not just about aesthetics, but about what’s practical; there can’t be too much fat, because adipose tissue won’t hold its shape when exposed to death and the elements. There needs to be enough muscle, and it has to be strong muscle. The bones can’t be thin or brittle.”

He changes the picture to a shot of the Coral Gables crime scene.

“Then…days upon days are spent looking for the perfect fish. Two women, two fish.” He gestures over his shoulder. “This easily represents three months work of work, right here.”

“So,” says Deb, “he’s got a boathouse or a cabin or something.”

“Yes.” Will points to her and nods. “Yes, exactly. Thank you, Lieutenant. He has a house, or a cottage, or an island. Someplace private, where he can keep these women locked up for weeks at a time. He may do some of the…work, at home, and some on the boat; he may do all of it on the boat. Regardless, no matter where he lives, he really lives on this boat. He loves it. It’s…it’s his world. On the boat, on the water. That’s his true home.”

He clicks the remote. Three X-ray images light up the screen. He looks at them.

“He keeps the feet. He puts them in what would be considered the shark’s throat, if the shark were a human, but he discards the legs. There were no feet found at the Texas scene but due to the disarticulated nature of the body it’s entirely likely that they were carried off by animals, or by the tide, or—ˮ

“What do the feet have to do with it? How do they fit in?”

Will turns his head. “I’m sorry, have we met?” He furrows his brow. “What’s your name again?”

“Dexter Morgan.” He folds his arms. “Blood spatter analyst.”

Will glances at Deb. He glances at Dexter. “Mr. Morgan.” He smiles a little. “Or is it Doctor?”

Dexter’s mouth flattens into a line. He exhales through is nose. “Mister is fine.”

“That’s a good question, Mr. Morgan, and it brings me to the next point of the profile. Our unsub is an educated man. He may have blue-collar roots but he’s made it through college at some point in his life. He has at least a baccalaureate degree. Possibly a master’s.”

Dexter lifts his eyebrows. “You get that from feet?”

Will’s voice is calm, even. “The premeditated and thoughtful application of semiosis, with its deliberate evocation of and reliance on symbols produced by the Western canon of myth, makes it the kind of aesthetic decision that an educated man is more likely to make.”

“Oh-kay.” Dexter folds his arms. “You wanna translate that into English?”

Deb nudges Dexter’s foot with hers. She spears him with a glowering look.

Will lifts his eyebrows. “No.” He gives a tight little smile. “Look it up.”

Deb shakes hair back out of her face. “You were saying, sir?”

“He’s educated,” continues Will. “The placement of the feet within the overall context of the scene—the arrangement of it, it’s theatrical quality—brings to mind elements of mermaid myths across the world and, more to the point, how they have figured prominently in both art and literature. So we’re not looking for someone,” he glances at Dexter, “who thinks that book larnin’ is a big ole waste of time. He, even if his family scorns such things—perhaps because his family scorns such things—is proud of his education, of his familiarity with the classics.” He clears his throat. “It is highly likely that these…installations, as it were, are for the benefit of those with a similar level of education. He would consider them his primary audience.”

Deb holds up a hand.

Will nods. “Yes?”

“How about the teeth? What’s the deal with those?”

“At this time we’re considering the teeth to be either a creative whim holding little significance or an evolutionary detail. I would need the presence of another body to confirm.”

Deb nods. She starts to grin. “Because it’s only present in the bodies found at Coral Gables.”

Will nods. “Yes.”

“If I, or anyone here, comes up with additional thoughts, like about the teeth. Are we free to contact you with those?”

“Yes, definitely.” Will flashes a brief but brilliant smile. “Of course.”

Deb smiles. “Great.”

“To recap,” says Will, “White or mixed-race male in his thirties, healthy, possibly of a wealthy background, with the means to spend his days on the sea looking for the perfect fish. Well-educated, he probably cleans up real nice. May participate in cultural events when not spending his time on his boat.” He places the remote on the conference table. “We are flying out first thing tomorrow morning, so any questions, thoughts, opinions should be forwarded to the Behavioral Analysis Unit. Thank you,” he goes on, edging his way to the door. “And have a nice day.”

Beverly intercepts him. She grins at him, lowers her voice. “Have a nice day? Really?”

“Well, yeah.” He puts his hands on his pockets, looks around. “Try at least.”

The perimeter breaks up. It drifts apart, the volume of conversation climbing until it almost blocks out the buzzing of the fluorescent bulbs.

Jack taps him on the shoulder. “Go. Get out of here. I’ll take care of this.”

Will sighs. “Thank you.”

Beverly grins at Jack, bumps her fist against his arm. “Break it down, Chief.”

“That is my job. You can go too, if you want.”

“See you at seven.” Bev looks at Will. “Think I’ve got time to get my nails done?”

Will snorts. “And you are asking me because why?”

“Good point.”


	15. Yasmina's House

Her dress feels like nothing. She feels her body when she moves inside the dress, a cushion of air against skin, something like a breath. It is made of silk; it stirs into movement, draped in layers. The fabric is black as a river of night. Tiny crystals hug it; she thinks that’s what they are, they’re too hard to be sequins, too small, not flat enough. Crystals sewn onto the outermost layer, scattered. They circle the low neckline, follow the thin straps. A plume, a jet. Tiny black crystals, some silver, a few of them white—they flow down her flank like the Milky Way, scatter across the fullness of her hips. They cling to the edge, sweep against the floor.

Lumen watches herself in the hotel mirror as she puts on an earring. There’s one bedside lamp switched on and the light of the room is yellow. The earring is simple, a tiny glittering teardrop shape.

_I remember when I bought this dress. A long time ago, a summer afternoon. A friend I am no longer friends with brought me to a sample sale, a clearance; it was some kind of way to sell designer dresses at a fraction of their worth. How young I felt, even though at the time I was world-weary and ready for the kind of night that would require a dress like this one. Now, I’m looking back. In this memory I feel young, fresh, still eager. I believed that the glamour of a night like this one would come, that the need for such a dress was just over the horizon._

“Yeah, ten years ago,” she murmurs. “I’m surprised I can even still fit into this thing.”

Lumen hooks the other earring into place. She takes a step back, then another; she balances on a pair of high silver strappy heels. She lifts the sheer overskirt off the floor.

When Lumen blinks, the woman in the mirror becomes another. A twin. The shapes of her eyes become clearer against the white skin, the eyes themselves turn a deep and gleaming black; all of her has darkened, her body is a shadow across the face of the moon but her skin is like snow. The pale color is cold but it is also inviting, refreshing. Her cheeks are frosted with pink, her mouth like spilled blood.

She walks across the carpet. She looks at her reflection in the window, holds the skirt up so it won’t drag on the pavement when she does this for real, when she walks out the lobby door and into the night.

Her phone rings. She walks to the desk, picks it up. “Hello?”

“Are you ready?”

She swallows. Glances at her face in the glass. “Yes.”

“I will come to you.”

Heat rises into her head and she nods. “Okay. Do you remember the room number?”

“Is it still 201?”

“Yes, it is still 201.” The earrings swing.

“I will see you soon.”

Lumen hangs up, looks around for her purse. She finds it, a small art deco clutch sewn in the shape of a fan. It’s beaded, sequined, it sparkles like a stretch of dreaming sea beneath city lights. She sets the phone to silent, tucks it in the bag.

It’s quiet inside the hotel room, dim, only the light from the bedside lamp is available.

_All the better to sparkle by, my dear._

Lumen puts her forehead in one hand.

_Careful. This makeup. Take care not to ruin such painstaking work._

The knock comes, three times, precise as the percussion of an instrument.

“Just a moment,” she says.

Her heart, stirred to the fore, begins to pound. She switches her purse to the other hand, opens the door. Smiles.

“Good evening.” He extends a hand.

“Hello, Hannibal.” She takes it. “It is nice to see you again.”

“The change in climate has agreed with you.” He steps forward, leans in. He leaves a soft kiss on the crest of her cheekbone. “You are radiant.”

Heat rushes to her face. “Thank you.”

“Shall we?”

“Yes.” She nods. “Of course.”

“The restaurant I have chosen serves a Moroccan fusion with haute French cuisine that relies heavily on the inclusion of local ingredients. I hope this is acceptable to you?”

“Yeah.” She follows him into the elevator. “That sounds great, actually.”

They enter the elevator. A sensation of dropping gets caught in her ribs, floats up, and she thinks for a fleeting moment of Will Graham.

“I met the owner in Paris, where I spent some time as a young man. Of course, back then, we were both young men. He is now internationally trained, an accomplished chef. He opened his first restaurant in Marrakech, and afterward, following his continued success, he decided to relocate with his family in Miami and open a restaurant here. He called it after his young daughter who passed away in a tragic boating accident. Yasmina’s House. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?”

“That’s a little different.”

“Yasmina loved it here,” says Hannibal. “The family spent many years vacationing on the water. Tough it may seem strange it is, I think, a fitting tribute.”

“I have never heard of it.” Lumen shakes her head. “I didn’t dine out much while I was here. Not like that. I pretty much lived on takeout, sandwiches. Stuff like that.”

“Of course.” The elevator doors open. “Such a shame. There are many fine restaurants in Miami.” He offers his arm. “It seems you’ll have to make up for lost time.”

“Clearly.” She smiles at him, takes his arm. “I look forward to it.”

“If our taxidermist continues to misbehave,” says Hannibal, “then I’m afraid we will have plenty of opportunities.” He withdraws his arm, strides ahead, and holds the door open for her. “And while I sincerely hope that he does not,” he goes on, a corner of his mouth tucking into a slight smirk, “I cannot deny that I have the desire to do this with you as much as possible.”

“I’m confident that the FBI and Miami Metro will catch him.” She smiles. “Thankfully, it isn’t required that murder and dinner depend on one another.”

“Except in the case of the lamb and fish you will be dining upon tonight.”

Lumen snorts. “Provided no one grafted the lamb to the fish beforehand, I think it’ll be all right.”

He chuckles. “Indeed.”

A sleek black sedan pulls up beneath the canopy. Hannibal inclines his head. “For tonight,” he says, opening the door, “a private taxi service.”

“Wow, go ahead and pull out all the stops,” she says, placing one foot on the floor. She twitches the skirt, bends her knee and slides onto the back seat. “I won’t complain, but I am beginning to wonder at the occasion.”

He chuckles. “The occasion is simply that I do not feel like driving tonight.”

“Hey.” She shrugs. “That makes total sense to me.”

Hannibal closes the door. He walks around, opens the opposite door. “It is also not a good idea to drive when one has consumed perhaps a glass or two of wine.”

She lifts an eyebrow. “A glass or two?”

He climbs in. “Perhaps more.”

“I was not aware that Morocco made wine,” she says. “Isn’t it a primarily Muslim country?”

“Yes, it is, but the region is well-suited to vine cultivation, similar to California in many ways. While it is certainly not on a par with the exceptional French wines, Moroccan wine nonetheless has its own unique character, and it pairs well with local flavors.”

He looks at her. The interior of the car smells of leather, sandalwood, night-blooming flowers; she smells his skin, warmed with blood, a tinge of smoke. The car pulls away from the hotel doors, rolls out from beneath the tiled canopy. Shadows cross her lap, her hands. The clutch purse sparkles.

“So, what you’re saying is that while it’s no Pouilly-Fuissé,” she says, crossing her legs, “it doesn’t exactly come from Wal-Mart in a box, either.”

“Yes.” He laughs. “That is exactly what I am saying, not to put too fine a point on it.”

He turns his head. The interplay of shadows and light turns his eyes into caves, accentuates the ripe curves of his mouth. He regards her for a moment. “You are happy to be back.”

Lumen glances at him. She turns to look out the window. “Haven’t we already talked about this?”

“You seem different.” He shifts on the seat. “I am only attempting to discover why.”

“I’m not staying with Dexter anymore.”

“Yes. Why is that? That is, of course, if you don’t mind the question.”

“I don’t.” She looks down at the purse, moves its supple glitter around. She watches the dim pinpricks of light flash in and out of being. “I wanted space. His apartment is small, and he’s sharing it with his infant son. We’re still friends.”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t you be?”

Lumen looks at him. “I don’t know. I suppose some guys would take umbrage at the idea of a downgrade on the relationship.”

“Some would, yes. But I don’t think you’re the sort of woman who would stand for that.”

A corner of her mouth twitches. “Stand for what?”

“A subscription to outdated beliefs and certain culturally lauded behaviors. The idea of woman as property does not sit well with what I know of you and I believe that any man who tried to impose such standards on you would rather quickly feel the sharpness of your teeth.”

“You are correct.” She nods. “I do expect the latitude to make my own decisions, and if you don’t give it to me,” she glances at him, “I’ll take it.”

“Did Dexter expect certain things from you?”

“I don’t know if he did or not.” She watches the traffic pass by. “It felt like he did, though, so I left.”

“And now you are in a space of your own choosing.” He smiles a little. “It’s good.”

“Yeah.” She leans back. “It’s not four-star accommodations, but it’s nice enough.”

“Our friends at the FBI deem it suitable, so I imagine that at the very least it’s safe and clean and conducive to work.”

Lumen glances at him. “The FBI?”

“Yes. To my knowledge, all of Jack’s team are quartered there.” He smiles. “Including Jack himself.”

She turns. Holds his gaze for the space of two breaths. “Why would you tell me that?”

He gives her face the once-over. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“I have no idea.”

“Perhaps their presence would make you uncomfortable, were you to know. It could be that then you would want to pack up, move on, find another place to call your own.”

She smiles a little. “So you’re worried about whether or not I’ll be able to sleep at night.”

“I want you to be comfortable. I want you to be happy.”

The smile disappears. “Do you expect certain things of me, Hannibal?”

“I only expect that which you wish to give to me,” he says. “And nothing more.”

Lumen looks at him, at his face. It is still dark inside the back of the car, the light is always changing, coming, going, gliding up over the bones that lie beneath his skin before disappearing again, before beating its retreat into the shadows. There is enough light for his eyes to gleam. The set of his mouth remains hidden, the shape of it hard to read.

A tightness comes into her chest. It pushes back on her breath, slight, the inside of her is like the skin of a drum, her breath in her ears like the still hollow heart of a drum. She is but a quivering touch away from exploding, rasping noise and she wonders at him, the way he is groping at her emotions, her reactions, touching a word to see what happens. The way he lays a string of them down, just to see if she will look before she steps over them.

“That’s good.” She looks away. Her hands tighten around the purse. “Because I don’t know what it is I want to give. What I feel like giving. To anyone.”

A soft voice whispers out of the hollowness, from just beneath the tension of her skin: _Oh, how you lie._

“I understand. I have no intention to push you.” He leans back, looks out the window. “I will follow your lead and nothing more.”

She looks through the smoked glass partition at the muted traffic lights. Wills the voice into a white noise that refuses the form, the stillness, of silence. “Then we’ll get along just fine.”

That voice, flattened into nothing, writes something instead on the back of her idling heart. It does so with a blade, in tiny letters. _There’s too much Will. There’s no room for anything else. That is your problem._

Hannibal lowers his voice. “I have no doubt.”

The car pulls into a circular drive. The building is tall, white, it is made of mostly glass and rounded at the corners. Manicured palms close around it like an honor guard. Lumen opens the door.

Hannibal hurries out of the car, circles around the back in time to offer his hand. Lumen steps out, balances her foot on the pale bricks. She takes his hand and rises onto both feet. Here she smells more exhaust, there’s less wind, the faint chlorine bubble of an outdoor fountain.

“Come,” says Hannibal. “Yasmina’s House is on the top floor.”

The doorman, dressed in white, holds open the door. He touches the brim of his cap as Lumen walks by.

“You will enjoy it, I think. In addition to the excellent food, the atmosphere has a unique aesthetic. It is very pleasing to the senses.”

“That’s an interesting way of putting it.”

He smiles. “I suppose it is.”

The lobby is large, open-air, floored with pale pink marble. Tall ferns diffuse the golden light. Sparse white signs in gold lettering spell the way to the restaurant, in Arabic and in English.

“The décor takes advantage of the skyline views, but it does not compromise a certain sense of intimacy,” says Hannibal.

The elevator is lined with mirrors. The light is bright, cold, it takes color from her skin and mutes the red of her lips into a harsh clotted purple. It does the same to the undertones of his garnet shirt, the silk tie worked in shades of ruby and orange and navy, the subtle red thread in the dark blue plaid of his suit. It brings up the fine lines on his face. It picks out a gleam of gray in his hair.

He watches her in the mirror. She studies his reflection.

“How do you mean?”

The smile flits from one corner of his mouth to the other, lingers in the space between one heartbeat and the next. “You’ll see.”

When the doors open, her eyes fill with a sudden hot rush of color: the entryway is lush, vibrant, mellow, everything is steeped in rich pink and red light, it is a color like fire strained through rubies. The air is warm too, it gushes forward and smells of simmering cinnamon, mint, cardamom, savory meats, tangerines, almonds, orange blossoms. The walls are blushing melon. A triple-tiered chandelier hangs from the ceiling, bulbs flickering inside pink and yellow and orange pots of glass. Potted palms flank the doorway.

“Wow.” Lumen glances down. An Oriental carpet separates her shoes from the marble floor. “This is beautiful.” She looks around. “Truly. And it smells amazing.”

A hostess in a crisp plum-colored pantsuit, her dark glossy hair arranged in a twist, steps through the door. Her hands are folded like a schoolgirl’s. “Good evening. Welcome to Yasmina’s House.”

“Reservation for Lecter, seven o’clock.”

She walks to a podium, consults a leather-bound ledger. “Yes. Excellent. Please, follow me.”

She leads them through a small anteroom lined with purple silk benches; there are brocade pillows propped up against the walls, low tiled tables fashioned of dark wood and chased with brass. Swags of scarlet drape the ceiling, reminiscent of a tent.

“This has to be the most gorgeous waiting room I have ever seen. It just looks so…so…” Lumen clasps her purse to her waist. “Comfortable, it’s the only word I can come up with. Like you could curl up and go to sleep in here, if you wanted to.”

The hostess holds aside a garnet and amethyst beaded curtain and they pass into a cool blue-tiled alcove containing a star-shaped fountain. A single lantern hangs overhead, its panels embellished with carnival glass. The stucco walls hold blue votives housed in tiny niches. The surface of the water is thick with multicolored rose petals. She glances up, sees the facets of a skylight.

Heavy wooden double doors lead from the alcove into a spacious, high-ceilinged dining room. Two of the walls are a pale gold; the color of them glimmers in the latticed light, like sand drenched in afternoon sunlight. Huge round cut tin lanterns hang from a recessed ceiling. Their wide nets of flowery, star-studded shadow fall across cream table cloths, yellow and blue votives, tiny crystalline bowls of floating orange blossoms.

The other two walls are floor-to-ceiling windows. Each is framed in orange silk draperies and topped with purple fairy lights. The city lights glitter, ferocious; they stain the sky into ashes of roses.

Hannibal leans over, murmurs into her hair: “There are two areas for dining. One, this, which is the main dining room.” The heat of his hand hovers over the small of her back. “And the other, which is on the other side of the wall, is a collection of private alcoves.”

“Of course it is.” She glances at him, smiles. “Sounds lovely, even if the view out here is unparalleled.”

“It is that,” he says. “One of the best views in the city.”

The hostess holds aside another curtain. This one is lapis, amethyst, and gold and it is backed with heavy silk the color of fog.

Behind it is a corridor, long and broad. Floored in soapstone tile, it is scattered with handfuls of red rose petals.

“This way.” The hostess’s shoes click on the stone. In the walls are set archways outlined in tile, curtained. She turns. “Right in here.”

Hannibal steps forward. He turns. “After you.”

The alcove is small, separated from the hall by a red beaded curtain, with a narrow table of stained dark wood flanked by a pair of plush couches. The table is topped with tiles; the ornate, geometric patterns reminiscent of red flowers abloom beneath a dark blue sky full of stars. The walls are a sugared pink, the ceiling hung with one of the ubiquitous cut-tin lanterns. This one is faced on four sides with a daisy shape, its center filled with goldenrod glass. Sconces deepen the pink hue into gold, soften the interlocking patterns of shade into a gilded lace wrought out of smoke.

“This is lovely.” Lumen lifts the hem of her gown off the floor, lowers herself onto the cushions. “Thank you so much for choosing this place. It’s like a dream.”

Hannibal takes the seat opposite her. “It was my hope that you would think so.”

She looks around, smiles. “Well, mission accomplished.”

“Wait until you try the food.” He smiles. “It is out of this world.”

“Do we get menus?”

“No. I have arranged for a table d’hôte, the prixe fixe menu. Tonight, I do believe the chef has prepared a chicken pastilla, breaded quail’s eggs with garlic foam and kofta made of vegetables…”

“What is kofta?”

“It is a variety of meatball, usually it is made of lamb that has been seasoned with mint, garlic, and coriander, minced, and then rolled into a large-sized ball. It is then glazed with egg yolk and saffron and steam-cooked in a tagine. Since the kofta in this dish are vegetable, they are fashioned with red lentils and jasmine rice.”

“That sounds amazing.”

“There is a chicken-based soup of cauliflower and hazelnut, and also leg of lamb stuffed with herbs and dressed with carrot and coriander puree.” He reaches across the table, lifts her fingers onto his. He strokes her knuckles with the tip of his thumb. “If you would like, I’ll choose your wines, as well.”

“Okay.” She tilts her head, grins. “Why not?”

He looks at her; his eyes seek and find the landscape of her face, take its measure, they linger in the regions they find most pleasant. Her skin heats up. He smiles, she sees it move into his eyes, a touch of warmth on his face like a sigh. She blinks, sees him reach across the table in her mind’s eye: the glint in his eyes would sharpen, follow the tip of his finger as it traces the curve and slope of her cheek, follows its gravity to the soft crimson valley of her mouth.

Lumen retracts her hand. She returns his smile, glances away as she rests both hands in her lap.

“They will bring the first course soon,” he says. “But first, we must choose the wines.”

A server comes into the room, she is petite and dressed in slim black pants with a blush-pink blouse and a purple apron trimmed with orange and silver brocade. She carries a leather-bound wine list, presents it to Hannibal. He peruses it, glances at Lumen over the top edge.

“I think, to start, two glasses of the Rosé d’une Nuit d’Été,” he says to the server and the words are silken, fragrant, like rose petals in his mouth. “To be followed with two glasses of Medaillon Red, served with the lamb.”

She nods, takes note, collects the wine list. She retreats.

“The Rosé d’une Nuit d’Été is a blend of grenache, syrah, and cinsault. It translates into English as ‘rosé for a summer night.’”

“Sounds lovely.” Lumen tilts her head, touches an earring. “And the other?”

“A blend of cabernet sauvignon, merlot, and syrah.”

“Mmmm. Dark.”

“Yes.” He looks into her eyes. “Very much so.”

“I like reds. I favor them, actually.”

“The strong quality of the sunshine, the tempering cool of coastal winds, the mineral content of the soil, all of these nurture the grapes into bearing their own unique signature of flavors. Here you will find a bold sweetness of black cherry, accented with plum and garnished with a subtle bouquet of cloves and cassis.”

“Is it a very tannic wine?”

“The tannins are present but they are soft, yielding upon the tongue. How have you been?”

“Okay.” She shrugs. “I guess. Everything moves so fast.”

“The last time we spoke, you said that you felt free upon your arrival.” He watches her face. “Do you feel free now?”

“I feel…” She looks toward the curtain, its subtle sparkle caught by the warm light. It’s cool in the alcove, the air soft; a faint scent of jasmine lingers. “Crepuscular.”

Hannibal is startled into a smile that claims his entire face. “What an unusual and interesting choice of words. Do, please elaborate.”

“It means twilight.” Lumen balances her folded hands at the edge of the table. “Though I imagine you know that.”

“Of course. Please, continue.”

“While a lot of people don’t really think about it this way, twilight is a liminal space. It’s the threshold between true day and true night. In my life, I am still coming out of one and passing into the other, but it’s a process. It takes time.” She studies the folds in her napkin. “I still feel liminal, even though this place is a familiar place. The life I’m going to have here hasn’t yet taken shape. It will, it’s going to, I’m busy taking all of those steps that are necessary to build something…” She glances at him, smiles. “But I’m not quite there yet.”

“It is interesting to me that you would choose such a metaphor to describe your liminality. Others would use the no-man’s land between countries, or the shore line at the edge of the sea, or doors and the threshold. Roads, too, are liminal.” He pauses, looks at her. “As are hotel rooms.”

Heat rushes to her face. “I am not the only one to ever reinvent herself, for a night, in a hotel room.”

“No.” His smile turns tender. “Of course you’re not.”

“It’s an easy thing to do.” She crosses her legs, smooths down the skirt of her gown. “Sometimes it is a necessary thing to do.”

“I know someone, a man of my acquaintance, who is very preoccupied with twilight and though I think it unlikely that he perceives himself this way, he is liminal.” Hannibal tilts his head, “Yes, like you.” His smile comes and goes. “But, unlike you, there is a part of him that stays in the twilight. It is a burden he has carried around with him since childhood.”

Lumen settles her chin into her hand. “Cats, you know, when their biorhythms aren’t determined by indoor light, are crepuscular. It’s a part of what branded them, in the Middle Ages, with the stigma of witch’s familiar.”

“An unfettered access to liminality is not always a bad thing. While within liminal space, one can transform into anything one wishes to be. One can access points of view that otherwise would remain… out of reach. Though, of course, one must be careful when one makes the journey out of liminal space and back into the real world.”

“Yeah.” She grins, chuckles. “You wouldn’t want to bring anything back.”

“Indeed, I would not.”

“Your friend sounds interesting.”

“He is.” Hannibal pauses. He picks up his napkin, unfolds it; he watches the work of his own hands. “Nothing about him lends itself to a strictly defined box.”

A dreamy chill settles over her spine. It drifts to her hips, encircles them, spreads gooseflesh across her thighs. “You’re talking about Will Graham,” she murmurs. “Aren’t you?”

“It may be so, yet it may not.” He glances up. “It would be rude of me to commit to an answer.”

She leans back. Her eyebrows lift. “Will Graham is your patient?”

Hannibal chuckles. “A lady such as yourself, with her familiarity with the ins and outs of our system of medical record-keeping, knows that HIPAA would tie my tongue.” He looks in her eyes. “And would prevent me from committing unethical disclosures, if that were the case.”

“He’s not, then.”

“You are free to make of that what you will.” The beaded curtain rattles; Hannibal turns. “I have no control over the conclusions you draw.”

The server comes with a tray bearing empty wine glasses. They are lightweight, crystalline, rims spun out into delicate light.

Lumen reaches across the table. She touches the back of his hand. “Shall we pretend, then, that I never named names?”

The server sets down the tray, lifts each glass by the stem. The bottle itself is chilled, wrapped in heavy purple linen. The long glass neck is coated with a fine scrim of condensation.

He turns his hand over, catches her fingers. He looks at her. “If that is your wish.”

The server pours Lumen’s glass first.

She withdraws her hand. “It is.”

The server pours Hannibal’s wine. He picks it up, swirls it. He sniffs.

“Like I said.” Lumen watches his face as he takes his first sip. “Your friend sounds interesting.”

He closes his eyes for a brief moment. “Liminality brings with it many special gifts.” He opens them, settles his gaze upon her face. He sets down the glass. “As I am sure you know.”

She lifts an eyebrow; her mouth quirks into a brief, tight smile. “Shape-shifting?”

“Yes.” He looks over her face, looks into her eyes. “After a fashion.”

Lumen blushes, picks up the glass, hesitates; she touches its rim with her lips. She takes a small sip, glances up. “It’s good.”

“There are three stages of twilight. Each is separated from the other by a count of degrees.”

“Uh huh.” Lumen puts her glass down. She props an elbow on the table, drops her chin into her hand. “Okay.”

“Civil twilight is the twilight that everyone knows, that period of time when the sun touches the horizon, flares into red. It may or may not stain the sky with blood, but it always changes the color of the light. By this light, the distinguishing features of the land, the sea, may still be read.”

Lumen grins. “A poetic way to describe something that happens every night.”

“There is much beauty to be had in the everyday workings of nature.”

“If only we’d take the time to stop and notice.” Her smile softens at the corners. “Go on.”

“Then comes nautical twilight, named for the ability to still navigate the waters by sunlight rather than starlight. Here is when the sky will deepen from silver into purple; it gives itself over to that unique shade of lilac glimpsed in the summers of the Northern hemisphere.”

Lumen thinks of lakes, flat frozen water stretching into pines, snow. Frozen lakes, tinted a flat dead blue under the weak sky. She shivers. “Not as much in winter. In the winter the purple you’re talking about it bitter and thin on the horizon, more of a yellow toward the end of the light. At least that’s the way it is where I come from.”

His smile changes his mouth, makes its shape more indulgent. “The third and final stage is known as astronomical twilight.” Hints of dimples rise to the surface. “Stars have appeared in all corners of the sky, full darkness has settled over the earth, but the sky may retain its tinge of deep royal purple, of cobalt at the horizon line. By now, navigation purely by sight is impossible on land or sea. The starlight has taken over.”

Lumen straightens up. “Interesting.”

“I’m glad you think so.”

“No.” She reaches for her glass. “I mean…it’s interesting to me that you chose sunset to describe the stages of twilight. Why not sunrise? It’s the same, but in reverse, and describing it lends itself to the language of gaining something, of growth, burgeoning. Sunrise lends itself to a language of new beginnings. Of life. But you chose sunset.” She picks it up, studies him over the rim. “It seems to me that perhaps you think less of your friend’s liminal gifts than you would lead me to believe.”

His posture remains still. He holds her gaze. The stillness in his face breaks, his eyes regain their warmth; a small smile flashes across his mouth like a glimpse of light. “You are an exceptionally observant woman.” He lifts his glass. “Touché. Perhaps you are right.”

Lumen buries her grin in a long drink of wine. “I’m glad you think so.”


	16. Nautical Twilight

Will takes the seat closest to the window.

Beyond the glass, the city skyline is subtracted from its light, rendered into something hard. Facets of light chip off the darkness and send brief dazzling flashes across his vision. He can see the sea; from here it exists as negative space, a vast stretch of black unadorned by even the reflection of the moon. It seems soft, a swatch of deep velvet spread out beneath a rosy, wine-stained, ashen sky.

“Get a load of this place.” Beverly leans over to him, goes sotto voce, “I don’t know what I was expecting? But this was not it.”

“We’re here at Dr. Lecter’s recommendation.” Will faces her. “What else could you expect?”

“Something less, I don’t know…and it’s going to sound terrible, and I apologize for that, but something a little less…ethnic. He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy to be into something that’s not French. Isn’t everything that guy eats French?”

“Morocco was once occupied by the French.” Will straightens his cuffs, glances at the pale peach napkin folded across his place setting. His eyes wander from votive to votive, to the fairy lights strung overhead. “From what I can see, the food here retains at least a touch of that influence.”

“The owner is a friend of Dr. Lecter’s.” Jack Crawford picks up his water glass, takes a sip. “Apparently, they have known each other since childhood.”

“I know.” Will looks out the window. “I’ve heard the story.”

“I haven’t,” says Beverly. “Spill.”

“The owner is originally from Rabat and he met and married his wife, an American woman, while she was studying in France. She, being a native of the area, brought their children here summers to vacation and to spend time with her family. The daughter, Yasmina,” he goes on, hand opening into a flowerlike gesture, “she drowned in a boating accident. In the bay of Biscayne, I think. So he and his wife named the restaurant after her.”

Bev makes a slight face. “That’s a weird tribute.” She looks around. “Don’t you think so?”

Jack shrugs. “Maybe. I understand that she loved Miami, and that she loved to cook and was going to work here; she had studied at Johnson Wales, I think, or was in the middle of her studies when she died.”

“Sorry we’re late.” Debra strides up to the table, moving faster than the hostess escorting her. She’s wrapped tight in a black strapless dress, shod in simple black heels with a single strand of small black pearls encircling her throat. Her straight hair falls in a smooth sheaf down her back. She grins. “The traffic was hell.”

Jack stands. “No problem.” He grins. “I’m glad you could make it.” He turns, holds out a hand. “You’ve met Will Graham.”

Will nods. “Lieutenant.”

“Please, it’s just Deb.” She grins, shakes her hair out of her face. She nods. “Nice to see you again, sir.”

“Oh, don’t do that. Please.” His face turns red. “If you’re Deb, I’m Will.”

“Okay, then. Will.” Deb turns, points at Dexter’s chest. “This is Dexter, my brother.”

Will nods. “Hello.”

“So I didn’t actually have the time to look up all those words you used today while giving the profile.” Dexter grins, holds out his hand. “I did write them down, though.”

Will shakes it. “I’m so glad.” His mouth quirks, doesn’t quite smile. “Perhaps I’ll add footnotes next time.”

“And this is Beverly Katz, crime scene analyst,” says Jack. “She’s our fiber specialist.”

Bev smiles, turns. She holds out her hand. “Hi. Shall I call you Deb as well?”

Deb nods, smoothing her skirt, glancing at both sides of her thighs as she sits. Jack pushes in her chair. “Totally,” she says, reaching over the table to take Bev’s hand. “It’s great to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too. I’ve heard so much about you.” Bev grins. “Don’t worry, it’s all the good stuff.”

“I have a reputation at the FBI?” Deb starts to laugh. “Shit. Should I be flattered or afraid?”

Will looks at her. His smile comes, is hesitant, it flickers in and out. He lowers his voice. “Frank Lundy was a friend.”

Deb looks as though she’s been slapped. “Oh. Huh.” She shakes her head and starts to smile, doesn’t quite make it. “Yeah, I guess he would be, huh?”

“I’m sorry,” says Bev, leaning over the table. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“No, it’s okay.” Deb shakes her head, picks the napkin up off the table. “I’m…I should’ve thought of that, that you might’ve known him.”

“He was a great man,” says Jack. “And a kind one.” He rests a hand on her bare shoulder, leaves it for the space of a heartbeat. “His death is a terrible loss to all who knew him.”

“Thank you, I appreciate it. I just…” Deb picks up her water goblet, takes a swig. She looks at Jack. “I don’t talk about it much, you know? I don’t get the chance to. Most people around here didn’t know him like I did.”

“Well,” says Jack, flashing her a warm smile, “I don’t think any of us knew him quite the way you did.”

Deb blushes. “Okay, okay. Enough about me. Okay? Sheesh.” She turns toward Dexter. “You’re supposed to protect me from this stuff.”

Dexter looks up from his menu. “Huh?”

Beverly giggles, takes a drink of water.

Will turns his attention to the window. The glittering of the light finds its way inside him. He seeks the darkness of the sea. Faint reflections come and go: blurred movement of servers, their bodies just shapes in the din and mired in ever-changing light of the dining room, adrift upon it.

Conversation picks up around him; he watches the sea and finds himself in familiar territory—words are reduced to currents, fluttering cross-hatched marks carved into a surface of water. Voices, waves that come and go, tones like the minute shift of sand at the bottom of the sea, sand at a shallow beach, grains that drift, that tumble. They draw familiar shapes, come together, follow predictable patterns; he reads the surface of the water, knows from the flash of sunlight in his eyes how the sand is going to move. Currents unseen, but felt tugging on the bones; the hollow groan of the sea caving in on itself. A rush of foam.

_…no one knows everyone knows alcohol is true comfort food is I like your dress like yours too what is this thing I don’t know how is the work you know it’s the work I’m tired I wonder so much trace left flight out of here in the morning and then there’s a smile, another smile, the same the same the same smile, so much of it, flashes of teeth traded like light from shard to shard to shard to shard of a broken mirror, the facets of a window, or a jewel_

Scent of orange blossom. Sweet, heavy, smooth, there’s a richness, a translation of long hot hours and sunlight; it’s soft on his skin, gentle in his nose, it comes over him like memories of heat, the hot salty breath blown in a long harsh exhale off the milky warm back of the Gulf

_(it’s deep to go here, to sink down back into the Gulf that lives in his body still, those waters of his growth, misty light reflected off fractured turquoise, those tides still a pull on his blood his lymph his saliva, all the waters of his body so obedient)_

“What do you think, Will?”

He turns away, is startled by the clarity of their faces: Jack, eyes dark but still warm, his mouth cautious; Debra, who is foreign to him but beautiful, her long face a queen’s, her eyes ferocious, her mouth cracked; Dexter, who isn’t looking at him, his big chin heavy jaw, dirty-penny sideburn pointing to the slight bulge in his jaw muscles; Bev, her smooth almond skin, her half-smile a familiar harbor, her eyes unafraid.

Will plunges his fingers into the waters at the back of his mind, stirs them until the whispers come. He glances from face to face, smiles. “I’m okay with the tasting menu.”

“Okay, then.” Bev turns her attention to Jack. She lifts her eyebrows. “I guess everyone agrees.”

“Dr. Lecter says that it is out of this world.”

Will’s eyes return to the sea. Smooth, dark. Through the glass a hint of cobalt at the horizon line, empty space where stars should be but they cannot claw their way through the shroud of pink city light.

_Daddy said to never turn my back on the sea but I did it anyway._

His mind wills a trace of the sun into this skin; a memory of its ponderous weight presses the sensation of sweat up out of it. His head hums around the ache of a brightness that isn’t there.

A long steady breeze comes off the water, cooled by offshore depths, and carries it away.

He shades his eyes, his calves caught by the water. He throws off the sun so he can watch the wound she makes in the landscape, her sinister curves sliced into the earth’s skin; currents tug the sand out from beneath his feet, implore him, but she steals his attention. The sight of her is wet on him, torn open to show its soft sweet blood. His gaze clings tight to the shape of her body and she pauses, picks her sandals up off the sand.

She looks over her shoulder. She looks at him.

“I’ll just have water.” Will glances at the server. “With lemon is fine.”

Bev pokes him in the shoulder. “Ground control to Graham,” she whispers.

He glances at her, his smile flickering. “Does Houston have a problem?”

She chuckles. “Not really. Not yet. You were…” She flaps her hands like wings. “Off.”

“Sorry.” He shifts his body around. “I was thinking.”

“Don’t let me stop you, by all means,” says Bev. “The first course will be here soon.”

“Okay.” He glances around the table. “What is it?”

“Some kind of soup.” She shrugs. “It has argan oil in it.” She watches his face. “What the hell is argan oil?”

“It’s a nut endemic to Morocco,” Will murmurs. He sets his napkin on his lap, unfolds it across his legs. “It’s like an olive tree, in some ways.”

Bev grins. She rolls her eyes. “Of course you would know that.”

“Yeah, I guess.” He chuckles, looks at her. “I guess I would.”

The first course arrives. The bowls are plain, white, they are made of heavy porcelain with a woven texture worked into the rims. They’re shallow but wide; the soup is gold, creamy, it casts off billows of steam. The server sets the bowl in front of him. He smells leek, nutmeg, hazelnut, a hint of pepper adrift in a savory trace of chicken broth. Shimmering beads of orange oil scatter across its surface.

Will dips his spoon, brings the edge of it to his lips. He blows off the steam. He takes a sip. Cardamom, cumin, cinnamon and ginger floods his tongue. It is a scintillating bouquet tuned down to a dull roar, layered into the flavors of cauliflower, leek, and dark chicken meat.

“Do you like it?”

Will looks up, sees Jack’s face.

“I don’t know,” says Will, tugging his collar away from sudden scratchy heat. “I’m not sure. Some of these flavors seem somewhat…contradictory, to me.”

“You’re not used to it.” Jack grins, gestures to Will’s bowl with his spoon. “Eat some more. The flavors of it start to harmonize.”

Will takes another spoonful. The second taste strengthens the chicken flavor, the rich nutty taste of the argan oil strangled by the hazelnut. He swallows, sets the spoon down. “I don’t like it.”

Bev looks at him. “Really?”

“Yeah, it’s too much…” Will takes a long drink of water. “I don’t know.” He shrugs. “It tastes all jumbled up to me.”

“I think it’s delicious.” Deb ladles another spoonful into her mouth. “And it smells completely fucking amazing.”

“That it does.” Jack smiles at her.

Will pushes the bowl away.

* * *

 

Lumen pushes the bowl away.

Hannibal glances at the bowl. He looks at her and smiles. “I see the soup is to your taste.”

She shifts her weight, eases one leg down off the other. She sighs, rotates her ankles. “Yeah.” She picks up her napkin, dabs the corners of her mouth. “That’s why there’s none left.” She smiles. “It was delicious.”

Hannibal watches her place the napkin on the table. “I presume you are heading to the ladies’ room?”

“Yeah.” She extracts herself from the plush seating. “Excuse me.”

“Of course.”

Lumen pushes through the beaded curtain, follows the hallway back down to where it merges with the big dining room. The silk drapes have been tied back and she parts the beads with one hand, steps through. It’s brighter out here than it is in the alcove. She looks around, squinting as her eyes adjust to the flood of light.

A server passes by. Lumen reaches out, touches her elbow. Her steps slow. She looks at Lumen over her shoulder.

“Where are the bathrooms?”

The server leans back, points.

“Thank you.”

Lumen steps down, lifts her hem off the floor. The big dining room is sunken, the floors blonde wood and smooth; the whole atmosphere glows, golden, it is like the light of a full harvest moon falling on the tawny sands of a desert. The cut-tin lanterns veil everything in soft light. The tall windows cut into the skyline, frame it in sections; the tables next to the windows are closed in by the tangerine drapes, just a little, the illusion is that of sitting at the opening of a tent, surveying the sparkling nightscape beyond the glass, the purple sky, those purples deepening.

_The distant sea would shimmer beneath the sky until the last of the light had fled beneath the horizon. Civil twilight_ , she thinks, taking the last step down. _Nautical twilight_. She moves in among the tables. _Astronomical twilight_.

It is a voice that makes her look. It’s laughing, raucous; it rings out over all others, like the strong tones of a bell calling all attention to itself. It’s familiar. At first she can’t place it; she looks, sees Deb with a big grin on her face. She’s in a little black dress, looking at a big black man in a suit. She has a wine glass in her hand. Her head is thrown back. Her teeth gleam. Deb laughs fit to rouse the world.

Lumen slows in her steps. She glimpses Dexter, all of his attention is on Deb; Lumen can see by the set of his mouth that he doesn’t like the way all of her attention is on Jack, and…

Will.

He’s by the window. Lumen looks at him, she sees him all at once, the dark gray blazer with the red plaid seersucker shirt, black tie, his dark hair made unruly by constant humidity. The ski-jump, prep-school slope of his nose, the glint of his eyes moving back and forth, his long trembling lashes, how the corners of his mouth restrain a smile.

Her breath stops. Her blood backs up, floods her face.

Beside him is the Asian woman from the parking lot, Beverly. She’s wearing a deep blue sleeveless cocktail dress with black lace and a high neck; her hair is pulled up, her big chandelier earrings glitter wildly in the warm light.

Will glances over Beverly’s shoulder. Blinks. There is a quick second, a widening of the eyes, it’s slight. He leans back. His lips part.

Beverly turns.

Lumen watches Will close his mouth. He puts his hands on the table.

Her cheeks hot, she looks away, watches her feet and listens for the click of the shoes over the din. Her breath comes faster.

She heads for the other side of the room. Her chest tightens. She fixes her eyes on the signs that point the way to the bathrooms and waits for a voice. Dexter calling out to her, or perhaps Debra; she would not forget a face.

_Will would not use my name. He would not speak. But he would follow me with his eyes._

Lumen glances over her shoulder.

Will is talking with Beverly. His brows draw together. He glances past Beverly’s face, double-takes. The crease in his forehead disappears, flickers back. Lumen halts.

He looks into her eyes. His mouth opens.

Lumen turns, strides toward the other side of the room. She squeezes through a pair of oncoming servers. The frantic boom of her heart drowns out all sound.

* * *

 

“Excuse me.” Will tosses his napkin onto the table. He flashes Bev a brief, tense smile and pushes the chair back from the table. “Bathroom.”

Beverly glances toward the end of the dining room. She looks him over. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” He straightens his tie. “I’m all right.”

“Will?” Jack watches him push aside the drapes, shuffle around the table. “Is everything all right?”

“Yeah, guys. Look. I’m okay.” He looks around the table. “Just gotta use the bathroom.” He holds up his hands. “It’s not a crisis.”

The look on Bev’s face reflects his sharp tone. He holds her gaze for a handful of fidgety seconds, gives her a soft smile. She returns it, looks at the table.

Will leaves the table, he walks. His eyes jump from chairs to lamps, from curtains to crystal bowls; there are servers everywhere. The lights of Miami are distracting. The din of people talking, eating, shifting in their chairs, of phones buzzing, it closes around him. The invasiveness of it, of noise and the sudden strength of the light kindles a dull ache behind his eyes.

He steps up his pace. At the arch that separates the big dining room, he begins to run.

The corridor leading up to the bathrooms is dim, the light is kind. It moves like firelight, flickers down from the big lamps that hang high overhead. Lumen is not quite to the door. The warmth of the light takes hold of her dress, elevates it beyond simple silks and crystalline flecks; it transforms into something cut and sewn out of a long winter’s night, the glints of light sharp, glittering both cold and wild.

Will grabs her arm. He yanks her back from the bathroom door. Her shoes scrape on the stone floor, it’s loud, it echoes.

He lowers his voice. Her breath comes fast, erratic; it makes him think of butterflies. “Did you follow me here?”

“No!” Lumen twists around. She glares at him, gleaming eyes narrowed into razors. “I’m here on a date, not that it’s any of your business.” She yanks her arm, stumbles. Patches of red flame high on her cheeks. Her mouth trembles. “Let go of me.”

Will loosens his grip. He looks down, breathes hard; he’s overcome by a primitive urge to grab her and fling her against the wall, hold her there with his body, to breathe into her breath. His mouth goes dry.

He blinks, glances at her startled eyes, the abrupt slack in her flat red mouth. He opens his fingers. His hand trembles. He takes a step back. “I’m sorry.”

She backs herself into the wall, keeps her eyes on him. She folds her arms. “I told you I wouldn’t follow you anymore.”

He runs an agitated hand through his hair, does it again with the other hand. He shifts his weight. He rubs his beard. “I know. I’m sorry. I…I-I…uh…” He wipes his mouth. “I overreacted. I’m sorry.” He lowers his voice, peers into her eyes. “It…it won’t happen again.”

“Okay.” Her collarbones rise and fall. She reaches up, touches them. “Okay.”

Will takes a step closer.

“I’ve got to go,” she murmurs.

“Yeah.” He back away, looks around. “Yeah.”

Will goes to the men’s room. He turns the knob, pushes the door open. It’s a single-stall. He closes the door, twists the deadbolt, leans his back up against it. He closes his eyes, catches his breath.

_You’re losing it. It’s going, Graham. Fuck that, never mind: you’ve lost it. That’s it. Your mind is gone._

He goes to the sink. He looks at himself. He’s surrounded by blue votives set into the walls, blue light is everywhere; tin lanterns hang from a black ceiling. The ceiling itself is embedded with tiny lights like stars.

He turns on the cold water, glances at the livid patches in his cheeks. He cups his hands beneath the faucet. Splashes his face. He turns off the water, gropes for a folded towel. He dries his face, flings the towel onto a corner. He looks in his eyes, yearns to haul back, make a fist, and punch his reflection right smack in its quivering mouth.

The toilet is separated from the rest of the room by a pair of curtains. He pushes through them. The light on the other side is lurid, it’s filtered through blue and purple glass and flooded with silver. He unbuttons his jacket. Unzips.

_How was it? It was boring. These conferences usually are, you know, and it might’ve been a total loss but for my good fortune and a beautiful blonde._

“Bullshit,” he murmurs. “You can’t know. There’s no way.”

_So they include those at conferences now?_

_No, I’m afraid not, and it was not the way you would expect. She was not there to promote any event; she was just…there. Now, of course, not all blondes are beautiful, and not all beautiful women have a razor-sharp mind. It is a rare delight to find both, and one to be savored._

The thought of Hannibal’s eyes on her in that dress, of his gaze anywhere near her body, makes his hands curl into fists.

He shakes his head but the thought won’t leave him: Hannibal’s hand, its fingers spread. Hannibal’s hand hovering between him, Will Graham, and the soft white river of her spine. A barrier. A fortification. The image, its aggressive clarity, makes his scalp hot and prickly. It makes his skin feel too tight.

Will sighs, takes out his cock. Urine splashes into the bowl.

_He used the word_ savor _. You know what that means._

The rage is sudden. It lands on him, comes down, hauls on his muscles. His breath explodes. Hot sparks of pain flare in his knuckles. On the backside of a ragged inhale comes full knowledge, its speed the speed of a synapse, of the thrown punch. The momentum of it spirals all the way up past his elbow. Pain sings in skin that is raw, peeled back, split open. He shakes out his hand, his numb wrist.

Will inspects the scraped skin. “Great.” He glances down. His eyebrows go up. “There’s piss everywhere. Lovely.”

It’s on the toilet seat, the tiled floor; a handful of stray drops darken his pants but they are tiny, already soaking into the dark blue cloth.

He zips up. Flushes the toilet. He pulls off wads of toilet paper and drops to one knee, uses the paper to soak up the mess.

_It could be worse. I didn’t piss all over my shoes._

Will tosses the paper into the bowl, flushes.

* * *

 

Lumen stands, lets her skirt drop. She flushes.

She pushes the curtains aside. Tiny lanterns hang from the ceiling; she glimpses them in the mirror.

She looks at her face. The skin there is red, it creeps in patches down her neck, spreads like roses on her chest. She turns on the water. When it’s cold enough, she puts her hands in the stream and presses her cold fingers on her cheeks. She takes a towel, soaks it. She dabs her chest, presses the wet fabric tight against her heat but it’s no match. It burns through, restores tingling warmth to her fingers.

Lumen opens her purse, takes out her lipstick. Her hand trembles as she brings the tip to her lips.

She squeezes her eyes shut, tosses the lipstick onto the counter. Lets out a harsh sigh.

In the redness behind her closed lids she thinks of Will’s hand, the savagery of it. His face, the moment of his mouth opening, eyes too bright. The lines in his face surfacing, a quick pained revelation. The sound of his voice carried her away from the sight of his trapped eyes, their constant yielding, their piteous struggle to look away.

She opens her eyes. Leans into the counter. She wets her fingers, wipes smudges of mascara off the skin beneath her bottom lashes. She uses the wet towel to remove all of her lipstick.

_That’s good. That’s good, Lumen. Keep on doing this thing you’re doing. Put your face back together._

Her hand steadies enough to reapply the lipstick. The color looks different in here; it’s lush, vibrant, it makes her think of rubies and roses, red berries, wine. She takes out her tube of mascara.

Once her face is restored, Lumen washes her hands. She walks out as fast as she can in her shoes, those high narrow heels wobbling.

At the edge of the dining room, she takes a breath. She looks at every table by the windows until she sees Jack; he’s seated at the outside, facing her, dressed in a dark blue suit. The fabric catches the light; it has some sort of sheen, maybe silk; that catches the light and gives back a lighter shade. It’s a blue that’s almost silver, like the sea beneath the moon.

_I have to cross this fucking room again._ Sigh. _I won’t make it all the way across this time, either._

Lumen steps down into the dining room. She pays attention to her feet, holds up the sheer overskirt and curses it as she moves between the tables, purse in one hand. She keeps her eyes on the big double doors.

“Lumen?”

It’s Dexter. She ignores him.

“Lumen!”

_I can’t ignore him a second time._

She halts, turns, pretends to scan the dining room. Dexter waves. He’s in a pearl gray blazer, very light in color, and a mint green shirt. He smiles, beckons.

“Dex, why are you doing this to me,” she mutters, circling around another table. She waves to him.

“Lumen, I thought that was you,” Dexter says. “You look fantastic, by the way.”

“Yeah, we’re over…” She gestures. “There. In the private dining rooms.” Lumen puts a pleasant smile on her face and looks around the table. “Thanks. So, uh, this is your dinner thing.”

Jack stands. “Dexter, please. Will you introduce us?”

“Oh, God, you don’t need to stand.” Lumen puts a hand on the back of her neck. “Not on my account. Please.” She smiles. “Sit.”

“Jack,” says Dexter, “this is Lumen Pierce, a good friend of mine.” He looks her over, a slight smile on his face. “Lumen, this is Jack Crawford. He’s head of the Behavioral Analysis Unit at the FBI.”

Lumen lets go of her skirt, offers her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Crawford.”

He takes it. “The pleasure is mine, Ms. Pierce.”

“Lumen, please.” She shakes her head. “Just Lumen.”

“Very well, Just Lumen.” He inclines his head with a smile. “I’m just Jack.” He nods to Deb. “I take it you already know Lieutenant Morgan.”

“Hi, Deb.” Lumen nods. “It’s been awhile.”

“Yeah. Someone,” says Deb, elbowing Dexter, “ahem, someone didn’t tell me you were back in town.” She gives a half-smile, lifts her eyebrows. “So…welcome back to Miami.”

“Thanks.” Lumen glances at Will. “I haven’t been back very long. So don’t be too hard on him, okay?”

“This is Beverly Katz, our fiber expert.”

Bev turns in the chair, holds out her hand. “Hey.” She flashes a brief smile. “He’s right, you know. That’s a really great dress.”

“Thank you so much.” Lumen takes her hand, gives it a firm shake. “I got a great deal on it, and I never get to wear it, so tonight is a real treat.”

“And this, over here in the corner, is Will Graham.”

Will turns away from the window. He shifts his body in the seat. He looks her over.

“He’s our profiler.”

Lumen takes a step forward. “Mr. Graham.” She tilts her head, holds out her hand. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

He takes it. “Oh?”

“Most of it’s good.” She looks into his eyes, starts to smile. “Most of it.”


	17. [703-555-6197]

Will thinks of a snare set in the trees, the deep woods: here, where an animal will think it’s safe, it is a place missing the skin-trace, any warning scent of the hunter.

He makes himself look into her eyes. It’s like looking into the night sky of a lonely place; it soothes him, calms the wildness inside.

“That’s good.” He wants to smile, feels it curve his mouth. “I hope.”

Lumen’s hand is hot, her fingertips cool. Her grip is stronger than it looks. “I’m not scared of you,” she says, “if that’s what you mean.”

“It is.” His voice breaks down. He looks away from her eyes. “It is, actually.”

“Now I wouldn’t believe everything you hear about Mr. Graham, here.” Jack’s voice is boisterous, big-hearted.

The labor in it to misdirect, to lay a track for the conversation, is sharp in Will’s ears.

“I rarely do.” Lumen lets go of Will’s hand.

Will puts his hand on his thigh, where his palm burns in the shape of hers. He takes a slow, deep breath. Lets it out. He wants to close his eyes but fights the urge.

“I’ve got to go,” she says.

He feels the retreat in her voice like it’s a physical thing.

“But it was nice meeting all of you.” Lumen glances at his face, looks in his eyes, holds them.

Will wants to smile at her but he can’t; the urge is buried too deep. He wants to hold her gaze but it’s too heavy; there are other eyes, everywhere, they are like flies that keep alighting on him and taking off and alighting again, crawling.

“So,” Bev says to Dexter. “How do you know each other?”

Dexter offers her a quirky little smile. “I used to be her landlord, actually. She was new to the area, I showed her around…” He shrugs. “We became friends.”

Will looks at him, at the slight smugness in his mouth. He glances at Debra, at the fleeting restlessness buried by the shift of her body and the slight chill in the way she looks at her brother’s face. _You were more than that, though, weren’t you? Back then, when something happened that made it gauche for you to have a girlfriend, you thought you were hiding it from your sister but…no. A sibling’s gaze goes deep, the way a parent’s gaze goes deep._

Dexter returns Will’s look; the expression on his face slides into a well-worn neutral groove, an affable mask bearing a benign smile. The smile changes, warms up, turns friendly.

“So…” Will dredges up a smile. “What happened? Why’d she leave Miami?”

“Why would you want to know that?”

“Well, uh.” Will leans back. “Ouch. Sorry.” He scratches the back of his head. “I wouldn’t have brought it up if I’d known it would bother you.”

“It doesn’t. Bother me, that is.” Dexter relaxes into that affable smile. “She went back to Minneapolis to reunite with her boyfriend. Fiancé. Whatever he was to her then.” He shrugs, picks up his glass. “I’d say he’s not much to her now.” He takes a drink. “Since she’s back here by herself.”

“Oh.” Will nods. “I see.”

“I guess they were going to get married when she pulled a runaway bride act. Yes, Lumen and the fabulous Owen.” He looks into his glass. “I helped her out. Cut her a break.” He pauses, watches Will’s face. “She needed it.”

“I’m sure she did.”

“She was here maybe six months.” Dexter’s eyebrows lift. “Then she went back.”

“Oh. Understandable, I guess.”

Dexter fishes his phone out of his blazer pocket. He holds it below the table.

It comes, the subtle rush of knowledge, solid. That feeling of knowing, of things just outside the range of his senses settling into place. _He’s texting her, it’s something like ‘Will Graham is asking questions about you, why do you think he would do that?’_

Dexter slips the phone back into his pocket. He looks at Debra, smiles a little. He props his elbows on the table and folds his hands.

Will closes his eyes, rubs them. _You’re paranoid._ He watches the city lights glitter through the tinted glass. _So what if I am? I may be looking for things that aren’t there, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Perhaps they’re just out of sight, beneath the surface somewhere. Hiding._

The server comes, clears the soup bowls away.

He has Lumen’s cell number buried away in an email somewhere. It’s been there for days.

_(in a minute there is time for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse do I dare to eat a peach to wear white flannel trousers to walk along the beach I have heard I have heard I have heard the mermaids sing—ENOUGH WILL GODDAMMIT STOP IT STOP)_

The server returns to the table with the second course. It’s a small package of baked pastry, circular, not much bigger than a hockey puck. He smells the cinnamon it’s sprinkled with, the sugar, the ribbons of mint.

Will’s face is hot. His heart beats faster. He pulls his phone out of his pocket.

Bev picks up her fork. She uses the edge of the tines to cut into the flaky shell. “Mmmmm, yummy. For real, Graham, you’ve got to try this. It’s super delicious.”

“I don’t know.” Will opens a text window. “It smells an awful lot like the first course, but with an added scintillating soupҫon of hot buttery pastry.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“It’s not bad.” Will glances at her, smiles a little. “It’s just…potentially misleading.”

He holds his phone in his lap. He looks at the screen, tucks the corners of his mouth into a line.

* * *

 

“This is the pastilla, a small meat pie traditionally made with squab,” says Hannibal, “but here, chicken is used instead. There are onions, parsley, and other spices cooked into the juices of the meat; the juices themselves are like a gravy, thickened with egg.”

Lumen turns the small plate in a circle. “It looks delicious. It smells good, too. I love the crust. It’s so delicate, folded in layers.” She looks at him. “Like leaves.”

“It is warka dough; it is much like the phyllo of Greek cuisine, but a touch thinner.”

Lumen picks up her fork. She ponders the surface of the crust, where to cut. She carves out a small wedge, takes a bite. The crust is crisp; gravy spills onto the white plate and melts the powdered sugar dusted there.

“Does it make you uncomfortable to know that Jack’s team is in the next room?”

“No,” she says, lifting the fork to her mouth. “Should it?”

“What should be and what is may at times be very far from one another.” Hannibal picks up his fork. “I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.” He glances at her. “Afraid.”

“I’m not afraid.” She takes a sip of wine. “This is very good. Sweet, spicy, but savory too. It’s the kind of combination that shouldn’t work but somehow it does.”

“It would be natural for you to be uneasy in the presence of the FBI.”

Lumen puts her fork down, pulls her purse into her lap. “The FBI has no reason to suspect me of any wrongdoing.”

“True.”

“Paranoia never did me any good.” She laughs. “Well, indirectly maybe.” She takes out her phone, puts it on the table. “If I hadn’t gotten all paranoid in the first place I wouldn’t be here.”

He watches her. “Expecting a call?”

“No.” Lumen shrugs, sees the indicator light flashing and picks it up. “Just…it can’t hurt to be available. You never know what might happen.”

“Indeed, I suppose not.”

“It’s been on silent.” She unlocks the screen. “It’s probably nothing.”

There are emails, Facebook notifications. Lumen clears them from the screen, notices the text icon. She taps it, turns the phone sideways.

_[Dex: Will Graham is asking questions about you.]_

“Is something wrong?”

Lumen looks up. “No. Why?”

“The look on your face,” says Hannibal, taking a bite. “For just a moment it was as though a shadow passed over you.”

_[Me: What kind of questions?]_

“You know,” says Lumen, looking up from the screen, “I saw a guy who looked like Will Graham on my way back from Minneapolis.” She shrugs a shoulder. “I don’t know if it was him or not. I guess I’ll never know.” She pauses, tilts her head. “I recognized him from Freddie Lounds’s Tattle Crime articles, the ones she’d posted about the Minnesota Shrike.” She gives him a small smile. “I looked them up because of you.”

“I would take what Ms. Lounds has to say about Mr. Graham with a grain of salt, if I were you.”

“Oh I did. A big one.”

_[Dex: He wanted to know why you left Miami the first time.]_

“I’m glad to know that you don’t believe everything you hear.” He smiles. “Not that I ever had a doubt.”

_[Me: What did you say?]_

“I lost my shit. I called Dexter, told him that I might have seen Will Graham on the highway, who he was, that he might have been following me.”

“And are you sure he wasn’t?”

Lumen puts the phone down. She picks up her fork, cuts herself a bite of pastilla. She twirls it through a puddle of gravy. “Why would he?”

“I don’t know. I do know that Mr. Graham was in Minnesota that day, and that he was in the vicinity of Bloomington, and that it had to do with his work on the Minnesota Shrike case.” Hannibal watches her face. “Beyond that, I am afraid I don’t know. I could not begin to offer a guess as to what he may have been doing there.”

Lumen looks up, into his eyes. “Do you think he would do something like that?”

Hannibal holds her gaze. “Yes.”

She takes a bite. “Does he often pursue cases that are off the books?”

“Mr. Graham does precisely what he feels like doing.” Hannibal touches his napkin to the corners of his mouth. “He does no more than that, and no less.”

_[Dex: I told him that you went back to Owen. That you wanted to work things out.]_

“Mr. Graham has no reason to pursue me, now does he?”

_[Me: Good.]_

“Are you so sure about that?”

Lumen turns the phone face down. She folds her hands. “Unless Mr. Graham makes a hobby out of looking into Miami’s homicide statistics, and not only makes a hobby out of keeping up on them, but also bothers to dig deep into them, and not only enjoys digging deep but finds some way to connect five missing persons cases, which he would also have to be following, to the aforementioned homicide statistics…” Her smile twitches into mild condescension. “Here, in Miami, where the criminal element makes a sport out of killing each other, where one’s so-called friends in high places are so corrupt that a sudden disappearance would not fall outside the natural order of things…here, in Miami, where no one cares if a rich motivational speaker decides to leave the country and perhaps take a few of his cronies with him, after all he’s taking dirty laundry with him when he goes, right? There’s more than enough money, and enough international ties, to easily fake his own death, and the deaths of his comrades, if he wants to.”

“You have a lot of confidence.”

“These disappearances would have to stand out to Mr. Graham, and they wouldn’t.” She picks up her fork. “That’s because there would have to be something special about them.” She lifts her eyes to his. “You know and I know there’s no reason for anyone to connect those disappearances to me.”

“What of your scars? They are unusual, to say the least.”

Lumen picks up the phone.

_[703-555-6197: Your Minnesota number is still active. Surprising.]_

_[Me: Who is this?]_

_[703-555-6197: Will Graham.]_

_[Me: Who?]_

_[703-555-6197: You can stalk me, but I can’t text you? Hypocrite.]_

_[Me: Fuck you.]_

_[703-555-6197: I see I have the right number.]_

“Your face, it is quite red,” says Hannibal. “Is everything all right?”

Lumen’s heart pounds; the pace of it quickens, floods her legs with trembling weakness. She glances at the phone, its dark screen. The light blinks.

“Yeah,” she sighs, rubs her heated face. “Everything’s fine. It’s my mom; she’s not being particularly nice.”

“I see.” Hannibal studies her face. “Should you call her?”

Lumen shakes her head, a hand on her collarbones. “No. It’s better that I don’t.”

“I take it she does not approve of your decision to return.”

“That’s putting it mildly.”

* * *

 

_[Lumen: What do you want?]_

_[Me: I want to talk to you. Not like this. Face-to-face. That’s all. Just talking.]_

“Bev,” Will mutters. “I’m sorry I snapped at you.”

She turns. “What?”

“I said that I’m sorry I snapped at you.” Will glances at her. “Earlier.” He gives her a small smile. “I didn’t mean to.”

_[Lumen: Why should I?]_

“Oh. Oh, it’s okay.” Bev waves him off. “Don’t worry about it. I’d forgotten already.”

“It’s not, and I’m sorry.”

_[Me: Aren’t you curious?]_

Bev glances at the half-eaten pastilla on his plate. “You like it?”

“It’s good. Yeah.” He watches the screen. “Much better than the soup, even though the flavors are similar.”

She chuckles. “Weird, isn’t it?”

_[Lumen: No.]_

“A little.”

“At the risk of…well, speaking of you snapping at me.” Bev sighs, lowers her voice. “I’m gonna ask anyway. You okay?”

“As fine as I can be, sitting here, in this situation, which is a situation that I hate, making small talk with people I don’t know.”

“You’re not exactly making a lot of small talk.”

“I’m making enough.”

_[Me: I don’t believe you.]_

_[Lumen: I don’t care if you believe me or not.]_

_[Me: Why did you follow me? If I asked you that question in person, would you answer to my face? Could you?]_

_[Lumen: Yes.]_

“Hey, look. If you hate it so much…bail. It’s not like Jack is going to grab his chest and fall to the floor in shock if you do.”

“I know, but…”

“What?”

“I know that I am usually very disappointing, and it’s a burden I am more than capable of carrying due to the fact that most of the time I don’t care. But…it feels a little heavier tonight. I don’t want to add to it.”

“I don’t think you’re disappointing.”

“Of course you don’t.”

_[Me: That’s what I want. Your answer, spoken aloud. To my face.]_

_[Me: Will you give it to me?]_

_[Lumen: Yes.]_

_[Me: When?]_

_[Me: Knowing that you’re in this restaurant is killing me.]_

_[Me: I want to leave.]_

_[Me: Take you with me.]_

_[Me: Go to the beach, maybe. Somewhere quiet.]_

_[Lumen: Me too.]_

_[Me: Let’s go, then. I’ll drive.]_

_[Lumen: I can’t just walk out.]_

_[Me: Why?]_

_[Lumen: Because it’s rude?]_

_[Me: Not because you’d rather spend time with your date?]_

_[Lumen: The date thing is complicated.]_

_[Me: You want to stay or you want to go. You just said you want to go. Doesn’t sound complicated to me.]_

_[Lumen: When you put it like that, no. But it’s not like that.]_

_[Me: How is it, then?]_

_[Lumen: It’s Hannibal. YOUR Hannibal. Not that there are so many Hannibals in the world.]_

_[Me: Your date is Hannibal Lecter?]_

_[Lumen: YES. You should know he thinks you’re very interesting, Mr. Graham. He told me all about your obsession with twilight. In detail. He wouldn’t admit that it was you, but I guessed.]_

_[Lumen: Civil, nautical, astronomical? Is that you?]_

_[Lumen: Will?]_

_[Me: I’m leaving. I want you to follow me.]_

_[Lumen: I just told you that I can’t.]_

_[Me: No. You told me that you don’t want to, after telling me that you DO want to.]_

_[Me: I think that you do want to leave but you don’t want to be rude and you know you can’t do both.]_

_[Lumen: That is not what I said.]_

_[Me: Yes, it is.]_

“Will?”

“What?”

“Are you done?”

“Done with what?”

“The pastilla.”

“Yeah. Yeah, take it. I’m done with it.”

_[Me: You’re an adult. You can do whatever you want.]_

_[Lumen: I’m an adult who has to live in the adult world, which means there are things that I HAVE to do.]_

_[Me: So you HAVE to eat dinner with Hannibal Lecter?]_

_[Lumen: No, I don’t have to. But I agreed to.]_

_[Me: How romantic.]_

_[Lumen: Fuck you.]_

_[Me: You keep saying that.]_

_[Lumen: Quit provoking me and maybe I’ll quit saying it.]_

_[Lumen: No promises, though.]_

_[Me: I’m provoking you? How do you figure?]_

_[Lumen: You got my number via dubious means. What did you think would happen?]_

_[Me: You followed me to a crime scene. What did you think would happen?]_

_[Lumen: But I didn’t follow you here. I told you I would stop. I stopped.]_

_[Me: But you didn’t.]_

_[Lumen: I did!]_

_[Me: I know you’re staying at my hotel.]_

_[Lumen: Wow, okay. That didn’t take long.]_

_[Me: Guess not.]_

_[Lumen: So did you look for me the night I called, looking for you? Or did it take a whole day?]_

_[Me: It didn’t take a whole day.]_

_[Lumen: How clever of you. Were you ever going to tell me?]_

_[Me: Tell?]_

_[Lumen: That you know I’m staying there.]_

_[Me: You mean, like, slide you a note under the door?]_

_[Lumen: You could’ve knocked.]_

_[Me: Why would I do that?]_

_[Lumen: Because you’re curious? That’s your job, isn’t it? To be curious?]_

_[Me: You’re trying to make me curious?]_

_[Lumen: Maybe.]_

_[Lumen: Is it working?]_

_[Me: Why would you want to make me curious?]_

_[Lumen: Maybe I like the idea of you thinking about me.]_

_[Me: You didn’t like the idea of it down on the beach.]_

_[Lumen: True. But since then I’ve spent too much time alone with the idea.]_

_[Me: What idea is that?]_

_[Lumen: You.]_

_[Me: May I ask you something?]_

_[Lumen: Yes.]_

_[Me: Are you afraid of me?]_

_[Me: Of what I might do?]_

_[Me: To you?]_

_[Lumen: Yes.]_

_[Me: But you’re willing to go alone somewhere with me.]_

_[Lumen: Yes.]_

_[Me: Why?]_

_[Lumen: I haven’t stopped thinking about you since that morning on the road.]_

_[Me: I haven’t stopped thinking about you, either.]_

_[Lumen: Did you really think I was in trouble?]_

_[Me: Yes.]_

_[Lumen: Why?]_

_[Me: You were parked half on the shoulder and half in the breakdown lane, like maybe you’d lost control of your vehicle.]_

_[Lumen: Once I’m done writing this, I’m going to leave.]_

_[Me: Where do you want to meet?]_

_[Lumen: Outside]_

_[Lumen: At the front door]_

_[Lumen: Hurry]_


	18. Astronomical Twilight

Lumen waits on the other side of the driveway. She’s away from the door, beside a column. She can see it; when she looks at its shape, she thinks of the frame around a painting. Of a lens. It holds movement, the comings and goings of people, of light; the air-conditioned air inside the building mingles with the humidity, it is a place where the smells and sounds of two different worlds meet.

_It’s liminal._

“Of course,” she whispers; she smiles and shakes her head. _The threshold space, the nights’ topic of conversation, here it is. The liminality of the doorway. Threshold space, which belongs to no one, no region; no sovereignty can be laid upon it except perhaps the sovereignty of God._

“God,” Lumen mutters, pacing; she hugs herself. “I even sound like him in my head.” She puts a hand on her forehead, shakes her head. She pays attention to the way the bricks feel beneath her feet. “This is so ridiculous.”

Lumen halts. She looks, again, at the door. The air is warm, it hangs around her, brushes her skin when she moves. The atmosphere is like a hand on the brow, the belly, the thighs; at times the density of the air is welcoming, soothing, but at other times it’s too much. The weight of it becomes like a crowd, like too many transient hands on the skin, too much breath, it’s distracting. The door is filled with golden light, its pure luminescence is gated by mitered corners; like water in the hands, it pours through. The doorway is gilded by the light. It cuts its shape out of the city darkness.

Will emerges with the blazer over his arm. The golden light touches him, it passes over; he’s taken off his tie, loosened the top buttons.

He’s taken off his glasses. He looks naked without them; his cheekbones and his eyes look unfettered, wild, turned loose on the rest of his face.

He steps out into the city dark, stops. He looks around. There are tall plants where she is, they surround a white column, layer it with heavy black shadows. At first, he doesn’t see her as separate from them.

Lumen watches him. His body, against the wash of light from the door—there is the whiter light that comes from the floods, they illuminate the white face of the building, and the recessed lights in the overhang, small, orange, weak—his body stands out, the shape of his shoulders both hesitant and contained, the elegant length of his limbs tense at the joints. The skin of her chest feels tight, her breath backs up, curls in on itself; trapped in her lungs, pushing up against her ribs, is a deep and raging current.

Will glimpses her, starts to cross the drive. “What are you doing over there?”

“Hiding.” She shrugs, keeps her eyes on his face. “A little.”

“Why?”

Lumen’s arms are folded; she turns toward the parking lot. “We should hurry.”

Will comes close to her. She catches a whiff of some velvet note, woodsy, it makes her think of sunshine falling through pine trees. He’s flushed. He looks at her eyes rather than in them; the dirty light dilates his pupils, darkens the blue. “Why?”

“I don’t want anyone to find us here.”

He nods. Looks around. “It would raise some questions, yeah.”

“Where are you parked?”

“Don’t know.” Will puts his hands in his pockets. He studies her face; the corners of his mouth moves as though he wants to smile. “The valet did the parking.”

“Oh.” Lumen sighs, looks up at the overhang. “Yeah. Of course he did.” She shifts her weight. “You should. Go. Do.” She waves her hand. “Give him the ticket. You know.”

He watches her. He turns. “Yeah.”

Lumen’s eyes skitter over him but they are restless, her gaze ricochets off his face and into the shadows of palm leaves, windows, small red flowers. “Yeah.”

“Are you going to come over here by the door?”

“I can.” She nods, gathers her long overskirt into a fist. “Okay.”

Will strides across the drive, pulls his hands out of his pockets. He hands a ticket to the doorman. Lumen feels her way into the seams between the brick, situates the tips of her sharp heels.

Will looks toward the parking lot. He lowers his voice. “Do you think Hannibal will follow you?”

“No.” Lumen stands close to him, her arms wrapped tight around herself. “I don’t think so. He’s very enamored of this place. I can’t imagine him abandoning this kind of food for me.”

Will snorts. “No. I suppose I don’t see that happening, either.”

“You?” Lumen looks at his profile. The light from the doorway spills into his hair, lightens its margins into a reddish tint. It casts delicate shadow into the hollows beneath his eyes. “Is there anyone to follow you?”

The corners of his mouth quirk. “No.”

“Why?”

Will turns, looks at her; he blinks at the directness of her gaze, traces the shapes of her eyebrows, her nose. “Well…Jack half-expected this all along. There’s Bev, but she’s the kind of coworker, and friend, who knows when to let me just go.” He smiles a little. “I don’t think Dexter likes me very much, and why would Debra bother?”

“She wouldn’t.”

The valet pulls up. He climbs out the car, leaves the keys in the ignition.

“Are you sure you want to drive?”

“Yeah.” Will shrugs. “I haven’t had anything to drink, so why not?”

Lumen lifts her eyebrows. “Because you don’t know your way around?”

Will glances at her, circles around the car. “I know it well enough.”

Lumen opens the passenger side door, gets in. She buckles her seatbelt, tosses her purse into the back. She flips down the visor, peers at herself in the mirror. “Where are we going?”

“I have twenty-four hour access to the beach.” He looks down, disengages he brake. “To the crime scene, I mean.”

Lumen rolls down the window. She watches her mouth move in the bruised dark. “You want to take me to your crime scene?”

“There’s a lot of beach. Miles of it.” He turns into traffic. “It’s closed at night, so we would be alone.”

Wind pours in through the window and blasts of air scatter into her hair, throw it out of its meticulous style. Lumen pulls the pins out. She uses her fingers to rake the lacquered curls apart. “Because that’s the goal.”

“To be alone? Yes. That is the goal.” He glances at her. “Is that too alone for you?”

“No.” She flips up the visor, leans back. She picks the pins off her lap and puts them in the palm of her other hand. “It’s perfect.”

“You sure?”

Lumen drops the pins out the window. “Yeah.”

Streetlights pass overhead. Light flashes through the inside of the car, it lights up her skin, catches on the crystals that have been sewn into the silk. Tiny pinpoints of light appear and disappear on the dark upholstery.  


Lumen turns toward the window. The sky is clear, darkened past purple and into the vague night of the city that is rarely black, or blue, but is instead an absence of stars, the moonlight, the starlight. She puts her head out the window, looks up. It’s like looking up past the bright buildings, the cones of the streetlamps, into an abyss.

Will rolls down his window and the roar of wind, of movement and tires, is amplified. Cross-winds lift her hair up off her back, her shoulders. They fling the scents of bruised flowers and rain into her face, of exhaust and spicy food, the constant briny breath of the sea, of mangroves creeping in the silted places where freshwater and saltwater meet.

Lumen looks at him. The light comes and goes, it skates across his eyelashes, brushes the long flat line of his jaw. It brightens the crests of his cheekbones, tints his lips a dusky purple. He looks straight ahead. Light comes, flashes across the muscles flexing beneath his beard. His mouth flattens.

She tucks hair behind both of her ears. “Do you not like it when I look at you?”

“Not particularly.” The corner of Will’s mouth twitches. His eyes move back and forth across the road. His hands flex on the wheel. “It feels too much like scrutiny.”

“I suppose it is.” She leans her temple against the headrest. “In a way.” She sighs. “Is scrutiny such a bad thing?”

“When it’s unkind? Yes.”

“Do you think I’m being unkind?”

“I…” Will exhales through his nose. His eyelashes flutter and he presses his lips together, shakes his head. Light slides up over his face, disappears. “I don’t know.”

“I don’t want to be.”

A light pink flush climbs his neck. It touches his cheek, flares into a ruddy patch in the hollow, rims his nostrils, reddens his lips. He slides his jaw from side to side.

“Do you want me to stop?”

He blinks. Below the sharp line of his jaw, limned by shadow, his pulse quickens. It thrums close to the skin like a flutter of wings.

Lumen’s mouth goes dry. She imagines moving closer to him, letting her breath fall, just that, the soft flow of her heat, the warmth of her body on his blood, the wild throb of his blood. Heat sweeps through her, sharpens her skin into gooseflesh; the image trembles, humid its clarity. Within it she feels the closeness of her lips, his skin, the irregularity of her breath. There is an urge to lean over, put a hand on his thigh, and cover the skin with her mouth; she longs to press into his pulse with her tongue, bite into its feverish struggle.

“I’m…I’m sorry.” Will’s voice is soft. He shakes his head a little. “I’m not used to having another person in the car.”

Palms pass by in a dark blur. A wide expanse of black marks the approach of the bay. Glitter, dropped from the lights of buildings, clings close to the shoreline.

“I’m not, either,” she says.

A slight thump and the car crosses onto the causeway. The tires tune up, hum like cicadas. Over the water the wind changes, cools, brings with it a subtle hushing sound, the hot-mineral scent of mud. The dirty purple glow of the city, its miasma of hot yellow, begins to fade.

The motion of the car sways into her body. Lumen looks out the window, past the water, the horizon unspools into darkness, a soft smear of distant light. She unfolds her hand, reaches back. Her fingers encounter the molded plastic of the console. The car arcs over the water, rises up. The back of her hand brushes the curve of a waxed paper cup; her fingers trace the perimeter of its fluted plastic lid. The scent of the wind changes, takes on more water. The car slides underneath full night.

The bent straw scratches her wrist. Her nails touch Will’s leg. He flinches.

Lumen sees the first star of the evening; its light is mulish, white, steady above the reach of the horizon. She keeps her eyes on it as the heat of him crosses her skin, melts into her bloodstream. The star is weakened by the glut of the city, its stew of streetlights and taillights; she opens her mouth, breathes, a fine tremble settles into her knuckles: _neons_ , she thinks, _how Miami loves its fucking neons_ , and with the sudden clarity of adrenaline she sees the green and violet, the yellow; imagines them mixing in with the orange sodium vapors, light like a cigarette put out in your eye.

She flattens her fingers. Breathes hard. She slides her palm, fills the curve of her thumb, her fingers, with his thigh. It’s firm beneath the skin, hot inside the loose folds of thick fabric; tension slides in and out of the long muscles.

Lumen opens her mouth. Closes her eyes. Immersed in the dark, anchored by the handful of his body, she smells the open ocean, rot, the riotous growth of jungle green; she tastes the ghost of rain, it is an omnipresent longing that always wants to coalesce out of the Florida air, to rush down.

She hears the irregularity of his lungs, the rawness in his throat.

Will moves his thigh. Lumen tightens her grip.

She opens her eyes, fills them with the view of the night sky. More stars come out of hiding as they cross the bay.

She moves the inside of his thigh into her palm. He gasps. She digs her fingers in and he makes an animal sound; it’s soft, strangled raw. Lumen closes her eyes. She bites her lip.

The cars rolls off the causeway. Speed bleeds out, puddles on the pavement. The tires murmur.

Lumen imagines the wind-stunted trees, the thickets, the white rock that is coral; she knows there is sand everywhere, it creeps across the roads and catches on fallen branches, against loose stones. It grits beneath the tires.  


She strokes his thigh with her thumb. The muscle, tightened, begins to quiver.

She reaches across herself, unbuckles her seatbelt; she turns over in the seat, opens her eyes to see drifts of shadow inside the car, they’re blue, grayish, black as velvet in the corners. Flowing past, a black snarl of trees. White lines, sinuous on the blacktop, gleam like ribbons.

The weak light fills the car, strained through moonlight. She works his long leather belt out of its buckle. She watches his face. He looks straight ahead; his eyes move, they dart from side to side. He blinks several times. His eyelashes tremble. She unbuttons his pants, unzips his fly. His mouth opens; breath rushes out, backs up again.

She moves her head into his lap.

“O-Oh,” he sighs; his voice is low, rich. He rests a tentative hand on the back of her neck, cups the tangled thickness of her hair.

It’s dark, there’s less wind, more heat, more momentum; the motor vibrates through the steering wheel, loud beside her ears. She flattens her fingers, slides them past the teeth of his parted zipper, digs through loose thin cotton, it’s threadbare, it’s worn down into the texture of silk. The skin is hot, his hair soft. He smells of grass, river water, musk.

His cock lifts. It thickens, curves into her hand. It hardens, grows hotter; blood surges against the skin, draws it tight. She closes her eyes and breathes on the head, her rhythm finds the rhythm of his blood, the hard pulse at the heart of his cock. The shaft jumps in her hand, swells into stone. She brings her lips to the skin, parts them; he’s soft, the skin like the underside of a summer-hot rose petal, like a tremulous kiss.

Will cries out. His belly is taut; his hand is soft, boneless, it slides down over her neck, spreads open on her shoulder. His breath rubs his voice thin, cracks it into pieces. “You’re trying to kill me.”

The words come out softened, smeared across the roof of his mouth— _you tryna kill meh_ —and her whole body throbs.

Lumen licks into him, melts the sweat off his skin, shivers; he gushes onto her tongue with a taste like rain at the edge of the sea. She fills her mouth with his cock and his hand moves beneath her hair; his palm is rough around the edges, fingers soft as leather. He holds the back of her neck, skirts the wild edge of her pulse with his thumb.

“Easy,” he murmurs, voice soft; it runs around. “Go easy on me, I…I-I don’t…” He stops, takes a breath. Licks his lips. “Wanna go off the road.”

Eyes closed, Lumen drifts into the dark behind them, goes there, loosens her jaws; buoyed by heat, the pulse of blood burning in her mouth. His breath scatters; the rhythm of it is like wings climbing, laboring to the sky. The head of his cock slides down her throat. She swallows. It pushes his breath higher.

“Oh God fuck…fuck.” He draws a sharp hiss of breath through his teeth. “Baby you gotta let me park this damn car, I-I…” His hand tightens on her neck. “I can’t.”

The speed leaves the wheels, swings out with centrifugal force; momentum climbs in her bones, makes her tense. The wind falls from a roar into a whisper; it backs away from her hair. She holds on, lips soft; he turns the wheel with one hand, with both. His leg shifts, his foot comes down on the brake. The sudden thud of her heart fills her ears.

Will slaps it into park. His breath grows louder, more ragged. He yanks the keys out of the ignition, throws them onto the dash.

The steady wind of the sea plows through the trees, floods the car with the dark scent of breaking waves.

“Now,” he breathes, both hands in her hair. “Now…”

Lumen draws her mouth up, down, up the length of his cock; she licks, drenches him, curls her hand around the wet. He slides a hand onto her back; with the tip of his thumb he follows her spine. She moves her mouth down his shaft, sucks. He cups her shoulder blade. She presses her fist to her lips, tightens her grip.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispers.

His words, wrapped so tight in breath, are heated; they settle over her skin, spread out. His voice, adrift, it breaks in places, shivers apart; the heat of it. The urgency an undercurrent, the flex of his fingers, of nails that want to dig. He swells, so tight in her mouth, velvet sheathing the furious pulse of his blood; she finds the rhythm, moves her head up and down to match it. His breath roughens; it digs deep into the wet darkness of his body. 

The wind murmurs beneath itself, formless words stitched underneath each gust. They drag across the sand.

“Oh fuck…oh fuck…” He makes a fist in her hair. His back arches. “Gawd…gotta no…I’m…I-I’m gonna…you gotta stop, darlin.”

Lumen takes the full length of his cock into her throat. His cock begins to pulse; thick bitter salt floods the root of her tongue. Will grabs the back of her head, cries out.

She sits up and leans back into the seat, breathes hard. Closes her eyes. Wipes her mouth. She listens to him, his breath, its slow fade into the sound of the wind.

“You,” he murmurs, swallows, the wet sound of his lips parting, the flood of his breath, crawls its way under her skin. “You didn’t have to. Do. That.”

“I know. I wanted to.”

“You gonna keep your eyes closed?”

Lumen opens them. The sky is sooty. The parking lot is full of trees, they’re all the same size, the same height; the leaves spread out flat at the top.

“No,” she sighs.

“Look at me.”

Moonlight comes in through the windshield. It’s kind. It falls, gentle, across the bones in his face; they’re sharp, almost delicate, they bear an edge fashioned out of too much work, too little sleep, too much isolation. His pupils are huge; looking into them is like looking through the approach of a storm and into the swath of torn trees left in its wake, the flattened flowers, the smoldering ground flooded with rain.

Lumen reaches over, puts her hand on his face. He blinks, does it again; for a fleeting second his eyes looked trapped. His eyebrows knot together. His mouth opens and he releases an empty breath. He looks into her eyes, looks through them, past them; he takes a breath, his eyes lose their focus, regain it. He glances at her mouth. He touches the back of her head. He gathers up a handful of her hair.

She closes her eyes.

Will’s mouth slides across hers, open; his hot breath floods her tongue and tastes like a swallow of fresh water. There is the sensation of falling, coming loose, of heat, of sinking down past her knees. His urgency holds itself behind his kiss, presses in, makes a seal; it trembles beneath its own weight. She moves her hand into his hair. Her heart takes off, gallops headlong into the sound of the waves. He takes her face in his hands. She shudders. He hums as he steers her mouth; she falls into his breath, drowns in the harbor of his tongue.

He takes the kiss apart, keeps his lips close to hers. His hands cup around her jaw. “I want you so much,” he says, his voice low and broken. He noses her nose. “And I-I can’t…fucking…stand it.”

Lumen holds her lips against his, keeps them soft; she takes one of his hands, moves it down her neck. His breath quickens. She pulls his hand up beneath her skirt, yanks the fabric, opens her thighs; with her nose against the side of his mouth, she pushes his fingers down into the thin edge of her panties. He tugs the fabric aside, works his fingers beneath it; he kisses her neck, hooks three fingers into her cunt. He pushes them in and up, breathes hard.

Will opens his mouth, rests it on her neck; he bites down, sinks teeth into the skin. He does it slow. Her shallows. His jaws tighten; the pain flares, hot, it sinks sparks into her skin. He holds her with his teeth, slides his fingers out. The pain deepens. It stiffens her back, quivers in her breath. He pushes slippery fingers back in. It clenches in her cunt.

She moans, arches her back, squirms up into the sweet gnawing burn of his knuckles. She spreads her knees. He growls, licks the teeth marks. He twists his fingers, presses the heel of his hand into her clit.

“Oh God,” she gasps, grabbing his wrist. “Will!”

His mouth bumps into her ear; he whispers and the words echo loud, rustle at the edges. “You gonna come for me?”

“Yes,” she moans, rocking her clit into his palm, “God…yes!”

The first twinge comes like a warning shot, wings passing over and brushing their wind into her cunt; the weight of it compresses her breathing. She loses control of her hips, moans. Her cunt squeezes his fingers, pulses out wave after dizzy wave. A flood of obliterating sweetness washes over her, aches; it buries all of her senses.

Lumen comes back trembling with sweat. Wind blows in through the window, stirs the kiss of the deep sea in the roots of her hair. She opens her eyes. His hand is still on her cunt, draped there, limp; wet fingers curl into the crease of her thigh.

“It’s hot,” she pants, looking at the ceiling.

He touches her hair and she turns, looks at his face. He smiles, she watches it climb into his mouth and stretch, lift over his teeth; it moves past its usual borders. It draws unfamiliar lines, changes the shapes of his eyes.  
“Good thing there’s a beach,” he says.

Lumen’s mouth twitches into a smile.

He watches her, studies her face.

She bursts out laughing, covers her mouth to try and hold it in. “Yes,” she says, nodding. She looks at him. Her words are smothered in giggles. “It is a good thing, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” Will grins, starts to chuckle. “Yes it is.”

Her laughter wells up, shakes into her body until her cheeks ache with it.

He laughs with her. “Do you do this every time?”

She giggles, wipes beneath her eyes. “Not every time.”

“Good. I guess.” He moves hair out of her face. “It’s pretty cute, actually.”


	19. Delicate Garments Stitched of Blood

“God, let me out of this car,” she says, pushing the door open. She turns her knees and sticks her leg out, scrapes the pavement with her heel. She glances at him. “You coming?”

“Yeah.” Will climbs out of the car.

Lumen stands. She shoves the door closed, takes a couple of steps toward the dunes. The wind blows through the silk, ripples it on her skin. Buried in the dark, the glittering of the fabric becomes winter stars reflected in deep water. She holds her hair away from her face. She gathers it, lifts it up off the back of her neck. She turns her face into the wind. “So what did you want to talk about?”

“What?”

She turns. “What did you want to talk about?” Her eyes gleam black in the bruised light. “You said earlier, on the phone, that you wanted to talk to me.”

“I…” Will closes the car door. He scratches the back of his head. “Yeah.” He shrugs. “I wonder.”

She drops her hair. She watches him. “Okay.”

He circles around the back of the car. “I…I spend a lot of time just…thinking, wondering about things. I guess you could say that’s what I’m paid to do, really,” he says, mouth twisting into a brief smile, “when you strip away all the fancy jargon. I get paid to wonder.”

Lumen takes a step. She turns her back on the sea. “Yeah?”

“And…”

Will reaches out. She steps back, hesitates; he closes the gap between them, touches a tiny scar on the outermost curve of her collarbone. Lumen watches him trace the outline of it with a fingertip.

“I wonder about these,” he murmurs.

“You noticed my scars?”

He looks into her eyes, nods. “Yes.”

Lumen sighs. Her mouth slants to one side. “Of course you did.”

“Yeah.”

She tilts her head and the color of her mouth disappears into shadow. “Does it matter to you?”

“I think it does.” He nods. “Yeah. It matters to me.”

“That’s not all, though. Is it.”

“No.” Will moves his hands over her shoulders, slides them down to cup the backs of her arms. Wind blows her hair into her face, wraps long strands around her neck. “I want to know…I-I want to know what you’ve done to think that I would have any professional interest in you.”

“Okay.” She cuts her eyes away. “If I don’t want to tell you?”

He lowers his voice. “Would you permit me to guess?”

Lumen searches his eyes.

He glances away, drops his hands. He stuffs his hands into his pockets.

Her eyes narrow. “You mean permit you to do your job.”

Will looks past her. Her words sting in his face the way a slap would. He presses his lips together. He watches the silhouettes of palms move in the dark, their fronds limned in moonlight.

Lumen touches his jaw. “You…” She turns his face toward hers and her eyebrows draw together. “You want to profile me.”

He closes his eyes, nods. Opens them. “Yeah.”

A shadow passes through her eyes, changing the shape of her gaze. He watches them soften, yield.

Lumen folds her arms. “Am I…” She swallows. “Am I going to like this?”

“I-I don’t know. No. Probably not. I don’t know.” Will sighs, shakes his head. “I don’t have to, we can just…” He waves a hand. “Forget it.”

“No.” She steps back. “Okay.” Her mouth presses into a sharp line. “Fine.” She nods. “Go ahead.”

“You don’t have to. I don’t have to. It was just…a thought.”

“No.” Lumen’s eyes are on his face. “No.”

“I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“This is you, and I want to see it.” She holds his gaze, lifts her chin. “Do your thing, Will.”

“Okay. Fine. I’ll do it.” 

Wind gusts between them, burdened with a scent of salt and flowers.

Will closes his eyes, lets out a breath. “The scars are the way in,” he murmurs, “and these scars you have, you’re not shy about them. Dexter knows their story, Hannibal knows their story, things leave…” His mouth quirks. “A signature, a belt, a whip, a piece of wire, a switch cut from a tree, the physics are the same: the tip of the instrument travels exponentially faster than the hand that does the casting.”

He listens to the deepening of Lumen’s breath. Her heat and humidity leaves her body; the work of her lungs a slow deep pull in the darkness.

“I-It breaks the skin.” He swallows. “In a predictable pattern but your pattern it crisscrosses your back in layers, one wound overlaying another, wherever you were, however you were held, in what chains, in what spaces, you didn’t sleep, you didn’t eat and the skin became compromised. You were held so long that the skin became compromised. The first wounds struggled to heal beneath the infliction of the last wounds.”

Muscles jump and flutter in her throat, her mouth; they carve subtle patterns into her breath.

Will opens his eyes.

Lumen flinches.

“But there was more than one. Yes? Each wound tells its own story, independent of the others. Each scar belongs to a different hand. How many? How many men? I don’t know.” He shakes his head. “Three? Four? Five?”

Lumen looks at him with wet eyes, her jaws clenched. Her chin trembles. She hugs her waist.

“You were so…”

He lowers his voice, clears it. He reaches for her hands.

She steps back. Her tears fall.

“So green, so fresh,” he whispers. “So raw. Naked. Lost. An abandoned girl stranded on a beach, at a bar, looking around, set adrift. You had no anchor. You broke your chains, let them rust. It was so easy for them to come along and pull you, exhausted, out of the water. So tired. Worn out. You had been treading water for so long.”

Lumen lets loose a harsh sob, claps a hand over her mouth.

The sight stabs him in the gut. “Shhhh, it’s okay, it’s okay.” Will pries her hand away from her mouth. With his fingers, he wipes her cheeks. “Shhhh. Take your hand off there. Now breathe.”

She draws in a deep shuddery breath, holds it. She nods.

He takes her face into his hands. The daytime sun burns, feverish, trapped in her wet cheekbones. The red skin whispers of the beach.

“Of course you were tired,” he goes on, his voice soft. “It’s hard to tear down a life, to burn it, turn the earth, salt it over, run as far away from the ruins as you can. Childhood, those first steps, what you’ve picked up over the course of a lifetime, it dies hard. You were so good for so long. You did everything you were told and believed that what you were building with your obedience was…was a stronghold, a safe place, a fertile place, a place to grow and…a-and bloom, and thrive, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t. Sometimes family is a lie. There was no view. No air. No sun. You had no wings,” he whispers, “because there was no room for them to open.”

Lumen wipes her nose. “No.”

She moves into his arms, brings her body up against him; she surrounds him like a wave, a trembling current. Her fingers tangle into the roots of his hair, cast a sharp net of gooseflesh across the surface of his skin.

“There wasn’t,” she sighs.

“What happened to you, it wasn’t a punishment handed down by God. This was nothing noble, nothing divine, it wasn’t karma. There’s no riddle for you to solve. There’s no message.”

He tightens his arms around her, smells cherries and gardenia trapped in her hair. Breathing slow, breathing hard, Lumen brings her lips to his throat. He buries his mouth in her hair, makes fists of it.

“You killed them,” he whispers.

Lumen’s breathing stops. She stiffens, her body jerks and when she pulls back he grabs her wrists, holds her still.

“You did it, you ended them, it’s the only thing,” he goes on, “you killed them, you took them out, maybe you drugged them, lured them, you got them alone, cut them out of the pack one by one and put something in their drinks and then…then…”

Lumen grunts, struggles against him. He tightens his grip until she whimpers, until she opens her mouth and pants against his shoulder.

“You had an axe, or something,” he breathes, “a machete, it was the kind of thing that feels so good when you swing it. You kill him when he’s down. You need the movement, the work of trembling muscles.”

She knocks him off-balance. Will shoves her arms behind her back, hugs her tight.

His mouth hovers over her ear. “You had to push the rage through or it wouldn’t come out,” he bares his teeth, grinds his voice into gravel, “and there was so…much…rage, how dare they, those animals, they trapped you, they killed you.”

Lumen arches her back, cries out.

“They picked at your corpse until you couldn’t breathe, couldn’t scream, until there was nothing left.”

She pants. “Let…go…of… _me_!”

“It’s like labor, though, right? All that rage, you’ve gotta work with it, you gotta let your body tell you when to push.”

“No!”

“It’s a lot of hard work to butcher a man,” he rubs his face into her hair, “it takes so much rage to get through all the bones. It takes so long to pick up the pieces.” His voice turns to silk. “There’s lots of swamp down here in Florida. Whole lotta water that no one ever sees. Did you drag those pieces onto a boat, take it out, past the mangroves, the cypress trees, underneath the moss…did you feed the pieces of him, of them, to the gators? You let the soil drink his blood?”

Lumen catches his neck in her teeth. She bites down.

Pain rushes him, comes like a weight and makes his breath tremble, makes it shallow.

“The water, he sea,” he half-whispers, half-moans, “the waves, under the waves, in the sea, the current, the Gulf stream, gone. Scattered limb from limb, bone from bone, the flesh is gone, it’s food for sharks, no one will ever find them, not so much as a…a-ah…oh God,” he gasps, “that hurts…fuck, I-I think you’re…I think you’re…” His voice breaks. He struggles to catch his breath. “You’re hurting me, you’re gonna break my skin, you’re gonna…do you…do you want me to bleed in your mouth?”

Lumen bites harder. He cries out.

Will’s muscles tighten, his cock a hard line against his thigh, runaway pulse trapped in a dark corner. The pain of her teeth crawls, burns, throbs.

She writhes. He pins her wrists tight to the small of her back.

“You liked it,” Will growls, pants, “the blood so red up to your elbows, thin silk gloves, delicate garments stitched of blood and sweat, a knife …y-you needed that, the blood, the pulse, the way it vibrates up the blade throbs the metal until there’s nothing left, not a drop, not a…twitch. You milked out that last breath and kept it for yourself while the skin, the bones, the blame got cast…into…the sea and I don’t blame you, I don’t, it’s a heavy price to take back your nights, it’s a tax carried around, dragged from place to place, a bag of bones, chains to keep them quiet, padlocks to keep them safe and you ask anyone who ever queued up to sit inside a tiny glass room and watch a man get strapped down to a table and they will tell you: it’s a heavy damn price and the only thing that pays it is death.”

He swallows. His hands twitch.

Her heart pounds against his, flutters like a rabbit’s. He lets go of her wrists.

She licks the wound. He breathes, hard, through his mouth.

“I drew a little blood,” she murmurs, “but only a little.”

“I’m glad they’re dead.”

“I’m glad they’re dead, too.”

“I’m not sorry.” Will looks into her face. “You asked for it.”

“Fine.” Lumen looks up. “I’m not sorry I bit you.” She slides her hand down, palms his crotch. “You’re not either.”

He takes hold of her wrist. “No.”

“Aren’t you afraid I might kill you, too?” With a light finger, she traces the shape of his cock. “We are very alone out here.”

Will’s breath flutters. “No.”

Lumen lifts her eyebrows. “No?”

He covers her hand with his. “No.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Nothing.” He shrugs. “It’s not like you’ve confessed or anything.”

She nods. “I suppose that’s true.”

He gives a brief smile. “There’s no supposition involved.”

Lumen steps away, turns toward the water. She keeps her eyes on his face. “Are you going to show me your crime scene?”

He lifts his eyebrows. “Do you want me to?”

“If it’s something you want to do. If not…” She shrugs. “I’m not sure what else we’re doing here.”

Lumen steps ahead of him, reaches behind her. She takes hold of his fingers and moves through the heavy blue dark like a thought, a sinuous shadow. He takes her hand. At the edge of the parking lot, she eases the high heels off her feet and loops them over her fingers.

“The sand is still warm,” she says.

The wind blows through the thick brush, rakes his hair off his forehead. The water shifts, black and glinting beneath a sky full of stars.

“It’s a long walk,” he says.

She looks at him. “How long?”

“About a mile. Let’s move closer to the water. It’s easier.”

Lumen lifts the hem of her dress off the sand. “This thing is going to get so wet.”

Will begins to unbutton his shirt. “Take it off.”

“What?”

“You heard me.” He shrugs out of his shirt. “Take it off. Wear this instead.” He holds it out. “There’s no one here to see you.”

“What should I do about the dress?”

He turns, sweeps his arm at a row of beach loungers. “Leave it on one of those. The shoes too. We’ll grab them on our way back through.”

“Okay.”

Will watches her toss the shoes onto the sand. She shrugs out of her thin straps, wraps his shirt around her shoulders. The wind flattens it to her body and she turns her back, threads her arms into the sleeves. The pushes the dress down and it slides past her hips.

“I’ve got it,” he says, bending over to pick it up.

“Thank you.” Lumen looks down, buttons up the shirt. “I’ll get the shoes.”

He shakes the sand out of the silk, holds it out into the vigorous wind. He drapes it over his arm; the silk is thin as a whisper, soft as the evening. The dress is still warm. He carries it to one of the empty loungers. Lumen follows, she wipes the sand off her shoes and uses them to hold down the gown.

“Better?”

She nods. “Yeah.”

He watches her move closer to the water. “You’ve got a lot of confidence in your body,” he says. “More than I would have thought. More than what is…usual, for a woman. I’ve seen it before.”

She turns. “Seen what?”

“It happens sometimes when a woman kills a man. The way she walks, the way she carries herself, the way her body moves…it changes.”

“How so?”

“It’s looser.” He shrugs. “It takes up more space. Some would probably say that it becomes more masculine but it doesn’t.” He looks at her face. “It’s just become more predatory.”

“Are you trying to be an asshole?”

“No.” Will puts his hands in his pockets. “I’m trying to be honest.” He glances at her mouth. “I can stop if you’d like.”

“Part of me wants to take you up on that offer.” Lumen wades into the shallow water. “But the rest of me is too intrigued.”

“Honesty intrigues you?”

“Yeah.” She chuckles. “It does. You know how rare honesty is? I mean real honesty, not selective honesty, but I guess you probably do know how rare honesty is, whether it’s real or partial or total or whatever.”

“No one tells the truth in my line of work.”

Lumen looks into his eyes, her mouth moves like it’s starting to grin but can’t decide whether or not a smile would be welcome. She draws a circle in the hair beneath his navel. “Except for you.”

“Yeah.” He pulls his belly in. “Except for me.”

“Does that bother you?”

“Not exactly.” Will exhales in a rush. “It’s ticklish.”

“Do you want me to stop?”

Gooseflesh ripples up his back. “Yes. No.” He puts a hand over hers. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t like it?”

“I like it but there’s too much of it.” His breathing slows. “I have to…I have to get used to it.” He glances away, lowers his voice. “No one’s touched me in a long time. Well…” He shrugs, looks at her. “Not like that.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” He lets out a sharp sigh. “Really.”

“Sorry.” She holds up her hands. “If you want me to stop, I’ll stop.”

“I didn’t say that.”

She lifts an eyebrow. Her mouth softens. “You didn’t.”

He shakes his head. “No.”

Lumen puts a hand over his navel. She watches her fingers rise and fall with his breath. “Is that okay?”

“Yes,” he murmurs. “That’s okay.”

“If I move…”

Will sucks in breath. “Yeah, that’s what does it. The…uh, hair.”

“It transmits sensation.”

He watches her hair, how the wind sifts through it. “That is a thing that hair does.”

“I told Hannibal. I told him about…” Lumen trails off, looks toward the water. “I talked about what happened. I didn’t give him a lot of detail…but I did tell him.”

“I know.” Her hand burns hot on his skin. “He thinks he’s made that knowledge into a hook and I think he’s tried to use it on you.” He puts his hand beneath the tails of his shirt, runs it down the curve of her hip. He follows the line of her nape with his eyes. “He underestimated you, though.”

Lumen studies his face.

He looks into her eyes. “Your ability to wriggle free.”

“Yes.”

“There’s no catching you unless you want to be caught.”

“Yeah,” she sighs, moving hair out of her face. “He’s…”

Will runs both hands up over her waist. “Manipulative?”

“Very.” She looks down the beach. “How much further?”

“Why do you want to see the crime scene?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugs. “Why not?”

“By now it’s not going to look like much of anything. You should know that. It’s just beach, and more beach.”

“Did you want to show it to me?”

“I’m willing to,” he says, “but that was not my design.”

Lumen takes slow steps. Her ankles cut into the shallow water. “Your design?”

He puts his hands in his pockets. “My intent.” He watches the water break against her feet. “I’m not going to get any specific benefit out of showing you, but I’ll do it if it will bring you satisfaction.” He looks at her. “I enjoy your satisfaction very much.”

“Ah, yes.” She laughs. “I imagine you do.”

He smiles. “Uh huh.”

“Did you think I wanted to fuck you on it?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugs, glances toward the dunes. “It crossed my mind, yeah.”

“It crossed mine, too.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s weird. Everything about this is weird. It could be, it could’ve been, the…I don’t know, the crowning weirdness. A finale event.” Lumen tucks hair behind her ears. “There’s always that drive to find symbolic meaning in things. You find it, use it to freeze a moment in time, to fix it in your memory, like a bug in amber: there, in Florida, that time I fucked a guy at a crime scene. On a night far enough away from Miami to leave the light pollution behind. Look! The stars, the purple sky, here’s the wind coming in off the water and the sand is still warm beneath your feet, and you did this thing because…I don’t know, the night called for it. From a future standpoint, looking back, it might’ve had meaning even if it’s not obvious now. _Especially_ if it’s not obvious now.”

Will looks at her. “You’re not sure what else to do.”

“No.” She shakes her head. “I’m not.” She chuckles. “I didn’t even know I was going to do this.”

“What, come with me here?” He grins. “Suck me off in the car?”

“Leave with you.” She gestures at the horizon. “Abandon Hannibal in the middle of his grand gesture.” She chuckles. “Yeah, suck you off in the car, while you’re driving, that wasn’t my design. I mean, it wasn’t until I did it.”

“Spur of the moment doesn’t count as a design.”

She laughs. “I didn’t think so.”

“Did you hope the crime scene might tell you what you’re doing here?”

Lumen sighs, looks up at the stars. “Maybe. I don’t know. It’s a thing to do.”

“A reason to walk down the beach, in the dark, and talk. In the dark. Where it’s easy.”

“It is easy to talk in the dark, but it doesn’t have to be this dark.” She looks at him. “You were driving. Why come here? Why here, of all places? Why not go back to your hotel room?”

“I didn’t know sex was going to be involved. In lieu of any knowledge of that nature, taking you back to my room seemed both presumptuous and weird. And…creepy. Like the only reason I’d want to be alone with you is for that. I didn’t want you to think that because it’s not true.” Will shrugs. “And I like the beach.”

“Fair point.”

“Not that I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m not. I’ve, uh, been thinking about you since that day on the side of the highway.”

“So you said.” She watches the water roll up onto the sand. “Or texted, rather.”

“Why did you follow me?”

“I don’t know.” Lumen shrugs a shoulder. “I wanted to? I think…I think I wanted to feel safe, and I thought that following you would make me feel safe. I’d know where you were, I’d know if you were following me or not. That sounds so stupid when I say it out loud, oh my God, but…” She rubs her face with both hands. “Yeah.” She glances at him. “There it is.” She lets out a bitter laugh. “There’s my stupid for you.”

“I don’t think you sound stupid.”

“You still scare me. You…arouse me. Not just physically, though…yeah. There’s a lot of that. Um. I…don’t think I’ve ever been this honest with anyone before, so give me a break. I have no idea what I’m doing.”

Will remains quiet.

“I know it’s dangerous, that I shouldn’t be here, with you, that I shouldn’t even be talking to you let alone doing…other things, with you, but I don’t care, and I don’t care, and I just don’t care. You make me feel things I don’t have names for. I try to, you know, to make myself do the right things but being near you makes me impulsive and stupid and I just keep coming back, even when you told me not to. I want to see you, I have this…craving for it, a need to see you. I want to fill my eyes with you, I want to fill my skin, my mouth. With you. It’s stupid and wrong and I know it’s wrong but I just…” She flings out her arms, shrugs. “Can’t seem to help it. There. Is that honest enough for you? Should I look you in the eye and say it? You said you wanted that, you wanted me to look you in the eye. Will that make it real?”

“No,” he says quietly. “I don’t think so. I think it’s real enough.”

“What if I want to?”

Lumen steps up, stands between him and the horizon. She looks into his eyes, holds them; he turns his head and she takes hold of his jaw and turns his eyes back.

In the blue, in the drift of waterborne darkness, her eyes are black, they’ve abandoned their rich brown to the shadows and when he looks into them he sees a weight of black that is like the warm tropical sky they stand beneath. Their blackness spreads over him, it bears down on his skin, he tries to look away but she will not suffer the absence of his gaze.

“I fear you,” she says. “I fear your ability to make me say things I don’t want to say. To seduce them out of me because yeah, it wouldn’t take much, the right look, the right tone, you don’t even know. I’ll tell you what it feels like, though. It’s like you’re gonna reach inside and pull it out of me, like it’s a surgery, you’re going to cut out my heart and split it open and read the rings inside its walls like it’s a story of my life because it is, it is _a_ story of my life, the most secret story. You don’t even have to do that, because I’ll just…give it to you.” The corners of her mouth tremble. “That is what makes you dangerous.”

“There are many things that make me dangerous.”

She turns away, wipes her mouth. She takes in a deep breath and shakes her head a little, starts back down the beach.

“Hey.” He takes a step. “Where are you going?”

“Back to the car.” She glances over her shoulder. “I think it’s time to leave.”

Will watches her. She keeps close to the waterline; her feet carve deep divots in the pale sand. Water wells up from beneath, slow, it fills her heel prints. The thin waves spill into the holes left behind by her toes and erode them smooth.

“Wait.”

She doesn’t. Light reflects off the wet sand, carves the shape of her into shadow. Her hair unfurls into ribbons.

“Lumen, wait!” He strides after her. “Will you slow down?”

“No. I won’t.”

“I don’t know what to say to you.” He reaches out, grazes her shoulder with his fingers. “I’m sorry. Sometimes I just…don’t. I have to think. I’m sorry.”

“I just want to go home, Will. I’m tired.” She laughs and it’s thin, ragged. “I’ve had a very long week.”

“I know.” He moves alongside her. “I have too.”

“Like many things in my life, this was a mistake.” She hugs herself. “I’m sorry for dragging you into my shit.”

“You didn’t drag me anywhere. Me being here has nothing to do with you. I mean…me being in Florida to begin with. I’m here because of my job. That you’re here too is a coincidence.”

“It is,” she says. “No, I don’t know anything about these murders, before you ask.”

“I wasn’t going to. I know you don’t.” Will touches the small of her back, lowers his voice. “Would you please slow down?”

Lumen turns toward him, her arms folded across her chest. She stops. She lifts her eyebrows.

“I said slow down, not stop.” A smile twitches across his mouth. “But if you want to stop, I guess it will do.”

She sighs. “What?”

“Nothing.” He puts his hands in his pockets. “I just…I don’t want you running away from me.”

She tips her head back, lets out a breath. “I’m not running, I’m…” The tension of her stance wilts. She looks at him, shakes her head. “Walking fast. I don’t know.”

“If you want me to take you home, I will.”

“Take me to my home, or take me to yours?”

He shrugs. “Whichever.”

“Okay.” She lets her arms drop. “Okay.” She looks around. “Let’s go.”


	20. This Isn't A Dream

Lumen opens her eyes. Her lids are heavy, dry, and for a moment she is disoriented; the car isn’t moving, it’s too light, there’s no stiff salty wind rushing in through the windows.

“You fell asleep,” says Will.

She sits up. “I fell asleep?”

“Yes.” His hair sticks out all over, curls tangled into drifts. In the middle of turning his head, he stops. He watches her; the orange light dulls the color of his eyes. It deepens the furrows between his eyebrows. He presses his lips together.

She wipes a sticky patch of drool off the corner of her mouth. “I was asleep?”

Will nods. “Yeah, you were asleep. You…” He lets go of the wheel, sits back. “Uh.” He glances at her. “You passed out pretty quickly, actually.”

“I’m surprised.” She sits up, feels around her feet. She makes a face. “I don’t usually…I don’t know.” She twists around in the seat. “Fall asleep in the car, I guess. It’s been awhile.”

“You don’t usually fall asleep around someone you don’t know.”

She hauls her purse out of the backseat, drops it into her lap. “That’s not what I said.”

“It’s what you meant.”

Lumen gathers her shoes up off the floor. “Maybe.”

“It’s okay.”

She opens the door. She unfastens her seatbelt. “I’m sorry. I feel like it was kind of rude to fall asleep on you. I didn’t mean to.”

Will shrugs, grabs his blazer and a crinkly drugstore plastic bag out of the back. “I don’t think so. You said you were tired.” She shuts the door, rubs at his mouth. “Tired people fall asleep,” he mutters.

It’s a short walk to the hotel’s side entrance.

Lumen watches him open it with his key card. Big moths swoop and dive; they flutter against the glass. “What?”

“Nothing.” She moves closer to him. “Nothing, I’m just…”

He turns his head. “Tired?”

She nods, glances at his eyes. “Yeah. Sometimes it takes a minute.”

“To wake up?” He holds the door open for her.

“Yeah.” She steps into the hallway, moves into the cold light. She shivers.

Will walks toward the elevator without a word.

Lumen watches him, follows; he smells warm and like the sea, a hint of mangroves, salty, her nose cannot separate him from the beach, from its slow tides.

He steps into the elevator. She follows. The light is harsh and underneath it, he looks worn to the bone. The doors slide shut. It starts with a discernible jerk.

Lumen puts a hand on him and he twitches at her touch. He reminds her of a cat, the sensitivity to the slightest brush against the tips of its fur. He is warm through the thin shirt.

“I don’t like elevators,” she says.

Will takes her hand. He laces their fingers, keeps his eyes on the doors. “I’m not a fan.”

“It, like, messes with my vestibular system or something.” The elevator comes to an inelegant halt. The doors creak, slide open. “I’ll feel off-balance for at least five minutes. Like I’m bobbing up and down.”

“Are you allergic to cats?”

Lumen looks at him. “No…?”

The corner of his mouth tucks, curves his lips into a slightly mischievous grin. His eyebrows lift. “That’s good.”

His smile brings heat into her face. “Why?”

Will stops. He shifts the blazer to one arm, slides the card into the lock. He keeps his eyes on the line between door and jamb, slides his gaze to the floor. “I have kittens.”

“What?” She laughs. “Kittens? Really?”

He nods. The door clicks open and he grips the knob, keeps the door closed. “I think they’re maybe eight weeks old? Ten? I don’t know, I’m not an authority on kittens.” He cracks the door. “Watch your feet. One of them likes to run for it.”

Lumen squats. “Go ahead.” She looks up, grins. “I’ll catch them.”

“Okay,” he says, “I found them at the beach, near a jetty. They’re either feral, community kittens, or someone dumped them out there.” He opens the door. “I hear claws on the carpet. I think you’ve got incoming.”

“How many are there?” Lumen hears a high-pitched meow. Stella wriggles through the gap in the door and Lumen catches her, gathers the little black body against her chest. “I’ve only got two hands.”

“Two.” He flips on the light. “Don’t worry, I see Esmeralda in my suitcase. She’s sleeping.” He goes in, tosses the blazer onto a nearby chair. “Stella’s the escape artist.” He toes off his shoes. “I should’ve named her something clichéd, like Houdini.”

Lumen follows, closes the door. The room is unkempt; the bedcovers are thrown back, towels hang off the desk to dry. A suitcase scatters its contents across one corner of the floor. Will turns on one of the bedside lamps, kills the overhead light. The drapes are all the way open, the curtains beneath pulled back. Parking lot light drifts into the room. It spreads up the white wall, draws thin shadows across the ceiling.

“I’m going to turn down the air conditioning,” he says.

Stella purrs against her breastbone, tiny paws kneading. Needle-claws break through the topmost layer of her skin. Lumen lifts the kitten, kisses her head. “Okay.”

Will goes to the window, opens the unit’s casing. He fiddles with it.

The hum lessens. She hears him breathing, hears Esmeralda digging through the clothes in the suitcase. Stella’s purring goes into her bones, travels up; it softens the falling silence. “Do you want me to stay?”

He starts to unbutton his shirt. “Yeah.” He watches her, loosens each button. “Do you want to?”

She nods, keeps her eyes on his face. “You have anything I can wear? I need to get out of this dress.” She smiles a little, cuts her eyes away. “God that sounds like such a line.” She blushes and puts the kitten down, runs a hand down her back. “Doesn’t it? Like ‘let’s you and me get out of these wet clothes.’ But it’s not comfortable to keep wearing it. I keep imagining the beads and the sequins coming off.”

“Yeah.” He takes off the shirt, tosses it to her. “I have shorts too, if you want those.”

She gathers the shirt up to her face, breathes through the cotton. He stops what he’s doing to watch her, just stands there, half in and half out of his pants.

Her breath hitches. She slides her shoulders out from beneath the straps of her dress. “Should I just get into bed?”

He swallows. His eyelids flutter as though he wants to close them. He nods. “Yeah.”

Lumen skims the straps down over her arms and gooseflesh prickles up the back of her neck, makes her nipples ache. She looks in his eyes. The gown’s layers of silk gather into themselves; they slide past her hips, succumb to the floor in tumbling folds. His lips part. She slips her thumbs beneath the thin sides of her panties.

His lids drift to half-mast. The rise and fall of his chest grows more pronounced, his mouth reddens; he’s so pale that she can see the blood rising, a thin pink that crests his cheekbones before blooming there like roses.

Her face burns. Her breath comes faster.

Will’s eyes, dilated and luminous, flick back and forth between her hands and her face. He licks his lips, melts his voice down to a murmur. “Take them off.”

“You want to watch me?”

He nods. His eyes have darkened, the shadows of the room settled atop restless blue. He breathes through his mouth. He half-whispers, “Yes.”

Lumen tugs them down her thighs, bends to guide the clinging fabric past her knees. Her hair falls down over her shoulders, tickles; it swings against her face.

“Come here.”

She steps over the pool of her dress. She wades through shadow, circles the bed, follows warm yellow light filtered through a white shade.

He throws heat off like he’s been holding onto it all day, like he’s been collecting the sun. He puts his hands on her hips, kisses her jaw; he follows its line to the side of her neck, slow, his lips soft and humid. They land, gentle, like petals shaken loose by the harshness of his breath. Her hands ascend his back, spread open on his shoulder blades. She palms his nape. She grabs his hair.

“Will,” she sighs.

His mouth presses into her feverish pulse.

“Will Graham, you’re Will,” she pants, her throat arched, her eyes closed, “God I have to keep telling myself this is really happening.”

He breathes hard. His teeth scrape and every hair on her skin tingles to attention.

“I have to keep telling myself this isn’t a dream."

He cups her face. “If it is,” he murmurs, his lips on hers, “we’re dreaming it together.”

Lumen puts her hands on his jaw; she slides the heels of her hands up over rough patches of stubble. She closes her eyes. He lifts her mouth to his, tentative, light, at first it is a brushing of breath and then his mouth opens against hers.

His tongue touches her bottom lip and she breathes hard, shudders; her mouth opens, her body at his softness, his heat. He floods her skin with the slow sensation of his hands, fills her mouth with his tongue. His tastes like marigolds run rampant in an autumn forest, like sunlight on black earth. His breath fills her lungs.

His kiss is a slow descent into a lightheaded sea.

He breaks away. She opens her eyes.

He takes his mouth down the front of her body and each burning kiss is abandoned to her rising breath: her throat, the dip between her collarbones, the flat between her breasts. Her fingers tremble, curl into his hair. Anointed with a trace of wetness, the air chills them, stokes the skin into goosebumps. Her toes curl. His tongue lays claim to her racing blood; it arouses her body into delicate and timorous destruction.

“God.” The word trembles in her throat.

He closes his mouth on her nipple.

“That’s so good,” she gasps.

“Get on the bed.”

Lumen opens her eyes. The room moves, tilts; the walls have been cast adrift, the bed refashioned of shadows and rumpled light. Her body loosens with the heat. She collapses over the edge of the bed, breathes hard; she’s dizzy, worn thin beneath too much oxygen.

Hands tight around her hips, he pulls her across the rumpled sheets. He dips his head, licks up the sweat beneath her navel.

Lumen looks down. His face is flushed, his hair damp at the roots. He looks up at her, slides his nose into the crease of her inner thigh. His breath comes quick and hard. He watches her face, closes his teeth on a tendon. He bites down. Her spine jolts and she moans, writhes into the sharpness of his teeth. The fragile pain of it shoots a tight hard throb into her cunt.

“Shhh.” He spreads her open, runs his tongue up to the hard slippery knot of her clit. He looks into her cunt. “Oh yeah, that’s nice.”

She grabs his hair, lifts her hips up into his mouth.

“Mmmmmm,” he whispers, licks her clit. “You’re sweet…like flowers and sugar left out in the rain.”

“Will!” The hot languor of her pleasure sharpens into a blade against his tongue. “Oh…God…God!”

“Yes.” He reaches up, takes her breasts in his hands. He rolls the nipples. Her clit throbs between his lips. “Yes,” he sighs.

Burning heat fills her to the brim. Her body twitches, delicate spasms that descend into her legs. Her hips snap and she bares her teeth; softly, gently he sucks on her clit and her orgasm concusses to life, a tremendous thing that blanks her mind and drowns her flesh. The intensity of it comes in quick hard bursts. Her lungs lock up her breath, hold it. It struggles in her chest.

He climbs over her.

Her moan breaks up through her ribs, it fills the room; it floods her mouth, spills down her skin, mingles with the sweat rising and falling with her belly. Will watches her come back, watches the life rise out of the dark and into her face. It blooms in her eyes. The corners of his mouth soften; his lips are pink, rimmed in a high gloss. He pulls her onto his cock. She closes her eyes, groans. She arches her back.

The tip of his nose touches the tip of hers. “Is this all right?”

Lumen smells the spice in his breath, a faint smoky musk trapped in the roots of his hair. “Yes.”

“If you want me to stop,” he whispers, “I’ll stop.”

“No.” Her mouth opens. Her chin trembles. “Don’t stop.”

Will props himself up on his hands and begins to thrust; he leans over her, looks down into her face.

“It’s okay.” She slides a hand up the back of his neck. She brings her lips close to his skin. “Do it harder.”

He breathes hard, slams into her. He closes his eyes.

Lumen watches the lines around his mouth deepen, the creases in his brows are like something out of nature. They become a land feature, topography worn by long years of unknown weather. Lines surface around his eyes like roads coming to life on a map, secret roads, narrow paths that lead into deep shadows, woods, wastelands.

Will’s face, its softness, its nakedness, its regions of buried blades, it is dangerous territory.

The hard-edged blade of her need cuts deep, flays her. His face lays her open. She watches his wet and trembling lashes, his thin skin, the weak shadows beneath and she yearns from deep within a broken-open place. She holds onto him; the tightness comes into her flesh, the warning, that faint flutter deep down.

His breath backs up. He strains, there’s sweat dripping down his forehead, the buried column in his throat works for air. His lips fall away from each other and hollows open beneath his cheekbones. His forehead trembles. His eyebrows lift. His eyes fly open.

She curls fingers into his hair. The gleaming edge of a fresh orgasm lifts her up, flings her through. She holds on to him, screams; she finds herself caught in his eyes, thrashed about, lost in the blue, a sky, a sea. His long strangled moan pours out of him and floods her face. His unstrung voice becomes a hymn.

Will pushes himself off her, turns on his back. He drapes an arm over his eyes. He catches his breath.

The tension ebbs out of her. The thrum of her blood dissipates. Lumen closes her eyes. Her own breathing, from inside her head, is a storm. Sweat dries onto her skin. She turns away from him, moves onto her side. Her back is hot. She listens to the whisper-scratch of kittens playing on the floor.

Will rubs her shoulder blades. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah.” She turns. “I’ll all right.” She waves her hand in front of her face. “I’m just hot.”

He rests his head on his bent arm. He smiles a little. “I have iced tea.”

Lumen smiles back. “What kind?”

He wipes the sweat off his upper lip. “I think it’s raspberry. It’s, uh…of course it’s warm, but if you want I could get ice.”

She grins. “You could get ice.”

“I could, yeah.” Will’s smile hesitates before widening. “Imagine that.”

Lumen starts to giggle.

He watches her. The corners of his mouth twitch. “You’re going to do it, aren’t you?”

“I’m trying not to.” She turns her face toward the bed, covers her mouth with her knuckles. “I get points for that, you know.”

He gets up, pulls on his boxers. “If you say so.”

Lumen smothers a chuckle. She sits up, still smiling, and looks around. She pulls the rumpled bedcovers into her lap.

Will empties his pants pockets. He tosses the key card onto the nightstand, checks his phone. “Well.” He pauses, flicks a finger across the screen. “Okay. This is…interesting.”

Her smile wilts. “What?”

He lifts his eyebrows. “I have a lot of messages.”

“Is that unusual for you?”

“Yes and no.” The screen light is harsh on the side of his face. “I’m quite accomplished at ignoring my phone.”

“What’s going on?” Lumen studies his face. “It looks bad.”

“It is.” He sighs. “It seems that about an hour ago, a couple in a yacht off Lower Matecumbe reported suspicious activity on Anne’s Beach.” He closes his eyes for a brief moment and pinches his temples. “It seems that that prior to filing a report, they argued back and forth for at least an hour or so about whether or not to get the cops involved.” He sits down on the edge of the bed. “But they did. Lucky for me.”

“They found something.”

Will nods, rubs his face. “Yeah.”

“Is it another girl?” Lumen doesn’t move. “Or girls?”

“I shouldn’t tell you that.”

She gathers the covers up to her breasts. “Are you going to tell me anyway?”

“I probably don’t have to.” He gives her a slight smile. “You’re a smart woman, after all. You can figure it out.”

“You have to go.”

“Yeah.” He shrugs. “I’m sorry, believe me I don’t want to.” He looks at her face. “I would much rather stay here with you.” He flashes a brief, worn, raw little smile. “I would much rather be asleep.”

“But you have to work.”

He tosses the phone onto the bed. “Yeah.”

“Okay.” Lumen takes in a deep breath, sighs. “I’ll get out of your hair.”

“Stay.” He looks away. “If you want to.” He pulls on his pants. “If you don’t…” He shrugs. “That’s okay, too.”

“Um.”

Will stands, searches for his shirt.

She follows his movement with her eyes. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.” He pulls a t-shirt out of his suitcase. He glances at her. “But if you’re not comfortable with it, I’ll understand.”

“Okay.” She lies down, pulls a pillow beneath her cheek. “I’m so tired.”

“Me too.”

Lumen watches him pull the red plaid seersucker shirt on over the worn gray cotton. He leaves it unbuttoned.

“It’s a long drive from here to Matecumbe,” she says. “So be careful.”


	21. Tallahassee Lassie

The tires of Will’s car hum into radio silence. He leaves Miami behind. He passes out of Homestead, enters darkness.

He rolls the windows down. Wind rushes into the car, it blows up the side of his face and rolls through his hair. It stirs the thick scent of flowers, mud, and salt into his curls.

His phone rings.

“Hello, Jack.”

“Where are you?”

“Well, let’s see.” Will sniffs at the wind. “It’s very dark, I’m out of Miami metro, and I smell…mangrove swamps?”

“Don’t be cute.”

“I’m on route one-south, I’m just passing mile marker…uh…” He squints, watches the signposts blur by. “One hundred three, I think?”

“Great. Hurry up.”

“There’s a staggering percentage of bridges on this road, you know. The speed limit is fifty-five, and I am surrounded by water. Furthermore, I’m tired, so speeding is a really bad idea. However…I do promise, Daddy, that I will not dilly-dally.”

“Wow. You’re in an exceptionally foul mood tonight. Do you mind if I ask why?”

Will glances at his reflection in the rearview mirror. The dashboard light gleams on the side of his neck. He glimpses a half-circle of rosy teeth marks. “I do, actually.”

“You looked at the pictures?”

“No.” His fingers flex on the wheel. “I have not.”

“Okay, then. I’m looking at one Caucasian male, blond hair, gray eyes. The body was found by the responding officers at the waterline. We’re estimating his age to be between sixteen and nineteen.”

“Wait…” He blinks, watches dark foliage pass by. “It’s a man?”

“Have I managed to finally earn your full attention?”

“Oh come on, Jack.” Will’s mouth quirks in a bitter grin. “You had me at hello. You know that.”

“The methods of mutilation and display are consistent with the other victims.”

“There’s only one body?”

“Yes.”

“I imagine he’s…slight, thin, small-boned?”

“That is accurate, from what can be seen.”

“Well then.” Will glances at himself. “Is he pretty?”

“Come again?”

“Pretty? Effeminate? Androgynous?” Will shakes his head, lifts his eyebrows. “Does he deviate in a more feminine direction? Is there anything unusual about his physical appearance?”

“He appears to be clean-shaven, the hair is short and well-groomed. No visible tattoos, no unusual piercings. The ears are pierced, but he’s not wearing earrings.”

“Pierced on both sides?”

“Yes.”

“Once? More than once?”

“Twice on the right, once on the left.”

“Would you consider him effeminate? You never answered that question.”

“I suppose so, yes.”

“Delicate of feature? Large eyes? Neoteny?”

“Where are you going with this?”

Will sighs, rubs his mouth. “I don’t know. Well…no, that isn’t true at all. Um. Could he…she, rather…have been trans?”

Silence. “I…don’t know. I see no outward signs of that, but that doesn’t mean anything, does it?”

“No, it doesn’t. But I think that would make him mad. Our guy, he thinks he’s got a biological woman---a cis-woman, rather, and he goes to do his thing but she hasn’t had the bottom surgery. Cue the outrage. But I really think he’d just dump her into the Gulf Stream and have his little tantrum and start over again because he would see this as an unsalvageable kill.”

“Perhaps. But there is no proof of transsexuality, here. Not yet.”

“Why pick a young man, then?” Will shakes his head. “Why break pattern now? If you haven’t already, have someone run a check on all murders in the Gulf area involving separation by tool at the waist. Look for signs of…experimentation, of trial runs gone wrong.” He drums his fingers on the steering wheel. “Make that all murders involving dismemberment of any kind by tool, include those with convictions, he may have cut up past failures and pinned them on…family members, romantic rivals, the nearest convenient person.”

“Already been done. Nothing like that comes up.”

“Fuck. Okay.” The hum of the engine seeps into Will’s brain, makes it difficult to feel where his legs are, his arms; for a brief second he can’t find them in relationship to the position of his body. He takes a breath, lets it out. He shakes his knees. They come back to life. Sensation crawls down the backs of his calves. “You don’t have any ID on the body?”

“Not yet.”

“How about this: none of these victims fit the standard profile. No prostitutes, no runaways, no one living below the poverty line, no one working in itinerant jobs. Your average serial killer targets people on the fringes of society. But…all these girls are from middle-class backgrounds, upper middle-class backgrounds, their mommies and daddies wear suits to work, drive new cars, they own houses in gated communities. What does that say to you?”

“That he has no fear,” says Jack. “He has the ability to move through these particular socioeconomic circles without attracting attention.”

“Yes. What else?”

“He’s upper middle-class himself,” says Jack. “He’s white. The color of his skin in conjunction with his linguistic patterns, vocabulary, body language, clothing choices—all of them combine to put these girls at ease, to make them feel as though he’s not a threat.”

“What else?”

“They were all students. We need to start looking at teachers, professors, guidance counselors, people working in student unions, student clinics…”

“Don’t forget Planned Parenthood.” Will watches the mangroves, the moonlight; their dark and lacy shapes race against the purple glow of the sky. “A number of student clinics affiliate with Planned Parenthood.”

“There are going to be a lot of professors and teachers down here with boats.”

“Yeah, that’s kind of a south Florida thing.” Will glances into his own eyes. “The boats.”

“Okay,” says Jack. “Good. Great. I’ll get someone on it first thing. Anything else to add?”

“Until I get there?” Will shakes his head, narrows his eyes at a distant set of headlights behind him. “No. Nothing.”

“I’ll let you go, then. Drive safe.”

“Yes, father.”

“Ha ha.”

Will hangs up. He tosses the phone onto the passenger seat and leans his head back. He struggles with the urge to close his eyes.

* * *

 

Lumen’s eyes open. For a moment she drifts inside her mind, seeks anchor; the room feels all wrong. The window is on the left-hand side, the sooty gray drapes left open and yellow parking lot light filtering through sheer panels. Shadows gather in different places.

_What the…_

She blinks. The color of the walls is all wrong.

_Oh yeah._

She lets out a breath, closes her eyes. She inhales and starts to smile and Will’s skin-smell fills her nose. Her body warms. She turns her face into the pillow, smells a trace of his hair.

Footfalls brush the carpet. The shift in weight is subtle, deliberate; the sound is barely there, light, as if the feet are bare.

Lumen stiffens. She opens her eyes. She catches movement in the flat-screen TV. Her belly pulls in, gets tight. Her breath shakes.

The glass holds a reflection of thin outdoor light and the shape of a body moves through it.

 _It’s…_ The tips of Lumen’s fingers and toes turn to ice. _A woman?_

A narrowing at the waist, the flare of hips, outlines itself against the reflection of a blank white wall. She’s light on her feet, moves with a silent grace. Her hair is pulled up. The shapes of her breasts show beneath a tight black t-shirt. The hair looks blonde, a dark shade, dirty, twisted up and away from a long white neck.

Lumen forces air through her nose. She thinks about her phone on the nightstand. It’s plugged in, the screen face-down. A surge of adrenaline shudders inside the big muscles in her legs. Her blood thrums. Her skin hums.

The woman glides into the dirty window-light. She steps in front of the TV. She’s tall, broad-shouldered.

 _I’d have to roll_. Lumen squeezes her eyes shut. She wrestles down the urge to pant. _Roll and reach_. Her fingers flex, the tendons numb. Her toes curl. _Maybe if she goes into the bathroom…_

The woman finds Will’s suitcase, squats. She unzips it. The noise of the sipper is loud and slow in the quiet. The lid flips back and Lumen holds her breath, listens; the woman’s breath is smooth and unhurried, a whisper, soft between her lips. Her hands dig around inside. Lumen opens her eyes. She sees the top of the woman’s head, the movement in her shoulders. The clothes rustle.

 _She must’ve been an athlete once upon a time, I think; a swimmer or a basketball player, something like that_. Lumen turns her head, dares a glance over the edge of the blanket. _Her shoulders are that kind of broad. Her arms are that sort of muscled_.

One of the kittens wakes up. Her tiny needle claws click on the bathroom floor and she squeaks, scampers across the soft carpet. It’s enough to make the woman to suck in a sharp breath.

 _My purse. On the floor. Next to the bed and_ …Lumen swallows. _The knife’s in there, but she’s gotta outweigh me by at least twenty pounds. Maybe thirty. I don’t think I could take her_. Lumen makes a face. _Don’t think I could…wait_. Blood rushes to her head, thuds hollow behind her temples. Her hands get warm. _I have a better idea_. Her mouth flattens. Her cheeks flash hot. I _have a much better idea_.

The woman pushes the kitten out of the suitcase.

Lumen takes a breath. She shoves a hand into the mattress and pushes herself upright; she hears the woman’s breath change, the panicked scuffle of her feet.

The kitten climbs the blankets. She scrambles her way up onto the bed, starts to purr.

Lumen lunges across the bed. The woman, still crouched next to the suitcase, gasps. Lumen flips her messy hair out of her face, switches on the bedside lamp. “Who the hell are you?”

The woman jerks and loses her footing. She topples sideways and her legs go out, her shoulder hits the floor. Her hands fly.

Lumen grabs her phone, pushes with her heels; she rushes up against the headboard and gathers the blankets up over her bare breasts. She raises her voice, sharpens it. “How the hell did you get in my room?”

“I…” The woman’s voice is breathless, shaking. “I think…”

Lumen hugs the blankets. She arches an eyebrow, barks out a laugh. “What’s the matter?” Her smile is tight. “Looking something to wear?”

The woman gets her feet under her, launches herself at the door.

“Oh no you don’t.” Lumen’s lips pull back from her teeth, her breath harsh. “Oh no…no, you are not getting off that easy.” She gets up on her knees. She unlocks her screen. “I don’t know who you are, but…”

Lumen puts on the flash. She holds up her phone.

The woman, nearly six feet tall, her spine hunched, her shoulders folded inward, grabs the doorhandle.

Lumen takes a picture and a brief, hot vertigo seizes her skin. Her joints tremble. Her heart pounds. The room lights up white. “You got the wrong fucking room, bitch,” she snarls.

The woman drops her hand.

Lumen looks up. The woman turns and she sees a long tanned Midwestern face with flat cheekbones and a narrow mouth; those thin lips twist, the light eyes narrowing. She turns her back on the door. The slow wilt of her panic, the way it slides out of her face, highlights the white squint lines.

Lumen takes in a breath. Trapped in the small frigid room she smells wet clothes, a trace of sunscreen, salt and tides, sweat. Her lungs stop. She blinks several times. “Oh shit,” she whispers.

“This _is_ Will Graham’s room,” the woman mutters, her eyes darting across the messed-up bed. Her shoulders hunch. Her hands make tight trembling fists. “It isn’t yours.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Lumen snaps, breathing hard, “but I was invited here.” Her cheeks throb with hasty heat. She snatches her phone off the bed, curls the screen toward the inside of her wrist. The corners of her mouth tremble. She keeps her eyes on the woman’s face. “And you weren’t.”

“I bet you think that hurts me, right?” The woman’s mouth contorts, trembles its way toward a bared-tooth smile. “I bet you do.” Her teeth are big, straight, white. Her shoulders lift. Her long straight eyebrows twitch. “Like it would hurt you, maybe?”

“I didn’t have to break in, did I?” Lumen wipes her nose with a shaking hand. She sniffles, lifts her chin. “Which is more than I can say for you.”

“I could just stay between you and the door.” The woman’s voice wavers, cracks through a soft childishness before sinking into a wet rasp. “I could just do it for a long time, you know.” She nods. “A long time.”

Lumen folds her arms over her breasts. She arches an eyebrow. “Long enough for Will to come back?”

The woman’s mouth tenses but she doesn’t say anything.

“Is that what you want?” Lumen’s voice gains an edge. Her belly trembles. She keeps her eyes on the woman’s face. “To be alone with Will?”

Her thin face flushes. Her eyes flick away from Lumen and she glances back, looks around the inside of the room.

“You’re surprised, aren’t you?” Lumen softens her voice, thinks about the nightstand, its drawer; in her mind is a clear image of Will’s hand descending, the soft thunk of him tucking his gun beside the Bible for the night. She struggles to smile. “You thought this room would be empty, didn’t you?”

The woman’s hands curl and relax, curl and relax. Her breath roughens. Her chest rises and falls.

“So…uh…are you the one who called the cops?” Lumen licks her lips. She clears her throat. “Down off the coast of Matecumbe?” Her voice moves in and out of a whisper. “Was it really a couple in a yacht?” She furrows her brow. “Or was it you?”

“He…” The woman’s voice climbs, cracks. She blinks, flinches with it. “He told you that?” Her voice fills with soft wonder. “He told you it was a couple in a yacht? He used those words?”

Lumen tries to remember Will taking the gun out of the drawer and her mouth goes dry.

The woman’s cheeks slacken. “That they called the cops?” Her eyes dim and she looks down, shakes her head. She does it rapidly. Her brow creases. “Isn’t anything sacred anymore?”

Lumen wants the bulk of the gun still in its holster and lifting. Her mouth trembles and she looks at the woman, her throat clenching. She strives toward that memory, thirsts for it, she wants to see the drawer sliding open, his hand dipping into darkness, the gun cradled by the art of his fingers, those smooth knuckles forgiving its weight---then the belt going into his pants-loops, the holster hooking onto it, but when she digs for it she turns up a blue-black nothing. Just her exhaustion, the stillness at the eye of that, her skin still dreaming of the beach, and a sensation of breath and heat.

“Did he really say that to you?”

Lumen nods and her lungs squeeze, her heart a wild thing caged between them.

* * *

 

Will rolls into a glimmering white parking lot, kills the engine. The sky overhead is full dark, a heavy black glittering with stars. He looks through the windshield, studies the dark sea.

 _The wine-dark sea_. He lets his eyes search for the horizon. _Has Odysseus cut himself free?_

A low murmur of water, the thin splashing waves of low tide, moves through the wind.

“Hey.” Beverly trots off a boardwalk. She tucks hair behind her ears. “The preliminary tox report came through just as I was getting ready to leave the hotel.” She puts her hands on the open window and leans in, shakes her head. “I’ve got it on my phone, if you want to see it.”

“I’ll take your word.”

She nods. “I say preliminary, because they don’t test for a lot of stuff down here, and we’re gonna need our own lab to be really thorough.”

Will blinks, leans back in the seat. He looks up at her. He rubs his hands on this thighs, flashes a brief and crooked smile. “It pulled up something anyway, I’m guessing?”

“Yeah.” Bev’s eyes drop. She studies his face. “Yeah, it pulled up huge doses of diazepam in both victims.”

Will looks down. He tugs the keys out of the ignition, stuffs them in his pocket. “Uh…were they killing doses?”

Beverly’s mouth twists. “No.” She pushes off the car, takes a big step back. “But they were unconscious when he began his…um, work.” She blows out a breath, rubs the tops of her hips. “If that’s what you mean.” She folds her arms. Her eyes find his face. “Cause of death was likely exsanguination via transection of the abdominal aorta.”

He rubs his face. “He cut them in half and bled them out.”

“Yeah.”

Will pushes the car door open. He puts his feet on the ground. Sand grits beneath his shoes. He props his elbows on his thighs, drops his face into his hands. “I’m so tired.”

“Yeah, I hear that.” She gives a small one-sided smile. “Me too.”

Will sighs. He stands.

“Wow.” She steps back and shakes her head, looks him up and down. “You look like hell.”

He snorts. “Thanks.” He closes the door. His tone is dry. “I love you too.”

Beverly’s lips quirk, slant into a smirk. “You have a big old bite mark on your neck.”

Will blinks. He shuffles his feet and looks around and slides a hand up, palms the curve of his neck. “Can we not?” His voice sharpens, gets light. He glances up at her eyes. “Please?”

“Yeah.” She holds up her hands and steps backward, spreads her fingers. “Yeah, sure.” She chuckles. “No problem, I won’t say anything.” She shakes her head. “I cannot speak for Jack or Jimmy or Brian, though.” She grins and leans over, pats his shoulder. “So you’re on your own, lover boy.”

Will winces. He looks over the cars in the parking lot. “Is Dr. Lecter at the scene?”

“Not yet.”

He touches his belt, pats his belt loops. “Is he still in the state?”

“Far as I know.” Beverly shrugs. “I have no idea.”

Will looks up. He closes his eyes. He thinks about sleep, feels it waiting just beyond his eyelids. He opens his eyes. Stars overhead, glittering. He sighs. “I forgot my gun.”

“I’ve got mine.” She snorts. “I’m a better shot than you anyway.”

Will lowers his face, looks at her. The corners of his mouth threaten a smile. “Ouch.”

“Truth.” Beverly nods at the boardwalk. Floodlight filters through scrub trees, palmettos, scattered mangroves. Wind ruffles the leaves. “The crime scene’s down that way, it’s not even a hundred feet.”

Will’s hand drops. “Thanks.”

Beverly bounces up on the balls of her feet, leans in. “I really want to ask.” She peers at his neck. “I’m sorry.”

He glances at her, flashes a brief half-smirk. His eyebrows twitch. “It’s a story.”

“Yeah.” She grins. “I bet it is.”

Will puts his hands in his pockets. He starts for the boardwalk and she hurries up beside him. He looks ahead. “So Jack says this body belongs to a man.”

The boards creak. Their footfalls make hollow sounds.

“Yeah, it is.” She shakes her head. “That’s weird, huh?”

Will finds the splintered light. He follows the marks it makes on the wood, the way it slices through the thin trees and scatters shadow. The scent of mud, shallow water, and rot rises up out of the ground. Stars hang overhead, diminished. The branches ruffle into the wind. Leaves gust into a throaty roar. People stand, restless, around a patch of sand.

He sees a gray curve of shark before he sees the white slope of narrow back, the snarl of short blond hair. A shallow gouge in the sand leads back to the waterline. Will’s stomach drops. His breath leaves him.

The voice of the water is everywhere, caught deep and murmuring in dream.

“Will!” Jack’s voice, booming out over the tide. “You made it.”

“I told you,” Will mutters, forces his mouth into a smile. He breathes the words through his teeth. “That I wouldn’t dilly-dally.”

Beverly smiles, rubs her hand across her lips. Her shoulders lock against the urge to giggle.

“You show him the toxicology report?”

Will steps down into soft sand. It shifts beneath him like damp-packed sugar and he finds his footing. He ducks beneath the police tape.

Beverly glances up. “Yeah.”

The miles between here and Miami hum in his joints, float in his bones. Fatigue flickers in the periphery of his vision. His temples throb.

He squats. Up close, there’s the strong fish-stink of the beached shark, a day-hot salt smell still simmering in the sand. Fine grains, white and glittering underneath the harsh floodlight, cling to the body’s wet skin. Hands and arms coated to the elbows, the sparkle of it makes him think of designer silk, opera gloves, beading---patches of sand stick to the shoulder blades, the small of the back. The young man’s hair is clotted with it.

He thinks of Lumen, closes his eyes. He shakes his head. Blows out a breath.

Beverly pulls on a pair of gloves, circles around to the tail end. Jimmy and Brian both glance up. They’re still in pajama-style pants and t-shirts, their hair mussed with sleep. Beverly squats. She uses a pair of tweezers to pluck fiber off the shark’s tail.

Jack watches Will.

“This is…” Will leans over. “Dirty.” He glances up. “This is the way he was found, right?” He studies the awkward angles of the arms, the curled fingers, those bent wrists. “Just like this? No one moved him?”

“Nope.” Jack shakes his head. “What you see is what there is.”

“Hasty,” Will mutters. “Like it was a…a rushed job, he did this in a hurry.” He touches his chin. “But…why? I don’t understand, the others were so…” He blinks, tilts his head. “Composed.”

“Yeah.” Jack folds his arms. “I know.”

Will looks up. He turns his head, looks at the water. “Has anyone talked to the couple in the yacht?”

“Local PD tried to persuade them to come into the station, give a formal statement, but…” Jack’s mouth tightens. He glances at the horizon, shakes his head. “No luck.”

Will utters a broken, nervous, quiet little laugh. “I imagine not.” He wipes his mouth. “I think whoever called was our…” His voice drops. “Perpetrator.” He stands, brushes his hands on his knees. “Did the local PD get a name?”

Jack pulls a notepad out of his pocket, flips back the cover. “The caller was a woman. She identified herself as Gwen Graham, and the yacht as the…” He holds the notepad closer to his face. He squints. “Tallahassee Lassie.” He looks up. “Registered out of Alexandria, Virginia.”

Will blinks and looks up. _I’ll love you forever and five days._

Jack closes the notebook. He lifts an eyebrow. “Will?”

He stares past the rim of light. He walks toward the water. “Anyone verify the name of that yacht?”

“No.” Jack shakes his head. “I didn’t see the need. Since it’s the middle of the night, I figured it could wait until morning.” He circles around the perimeter. His voice gets louder. “Why?” His enunciation slows, sharpens. He comes up behind Will. “Is there a need, Will?”

Will squints into the darkness, descends the mild white slope to the shallows. The tide is out. He puts his back between the floodlight and the horizon, his eyes crawling across the sprawl of stars. “Anyone gone out looking for it?” His head turns toward the grit of Jack’s footfalls. “The yacht, I mean?”

Jack shakes his head. “No, I don’t think so. I’ll double check that with local PD but there was absolutely no probable cause, so…”

“The boat’s still out there, it’s less than…five hundred feet, maybe a thousand offshore.” Will shakes his head, his heart racing. His palms turn clammy. “It’ll be empty.” He looks at Jack. “Surely you can generate probable cause out of that.”

Jack’s mouth flattens into a line. “I’ll get someone on it.”

Will’s brow furrows. He looks down at the water on his toes. “In nineteen eighty-seven a nurse’s aide by the name of Gwendolyn Graham smothered five elderly women to death with the help of her girlfriend, Catherine Wood.”

Jack pulls in a deep breath, holds it.

“It’s the, uh…Lethal Lovers case.” Will’s mouth trembles into a tight, brief, pained smile. “Out of Grand Rapids, Michigan.” He huffs out a laugh. “Surely they’ve got a display somewhere in your Evil Minds museum?”

“I’m familiar.” Jack’s voice is low. “But only passingly so.” He turns his head. His tone sharpens, turns to silk. “Care to enlighten me, Will?”

“I’d…love to.” Will chuckles and his lungs feel light, his breath fluttery. “The story, according Ms. Graham, is all about how Ms. Wood is an evil mastermind who constructed the whole thing as an elaborate plot to pay her back for cheating.” Sweat prickles his upper lip. He blinks back a wave of dizziness. “Ms. Wood, on the other hand, says it was a kind of…lover’s pact, a way to…” He runs a shaking hand over his face. “Bind them together forever.” He looks at his trembling fingers, rolls them into a fist. “We can all see how well that worked out.” He laughs. It’s raw, abrupt. “Since once in police custody, they both immediately turned on each other.”

Beverly takes a step forward. “Will?”

He glances at her. “Yeah, yeah, I’m…” He wipes sweat off his forehead. He smiles, turns his head toward Jack. “Anyway, uh…Ms. Graham, she got five consecutive life sentences while Ms. Wood, on the other hand, negotiated a plea.” The corners of his mouth tighten. He snorts. “She is currently serving twenty to forty years at the minimum security federal correctional institution in---“

“Tallahassee, Florida.” Jack shakes his head, cracks a grin. He lets out a soft snort. “Which, I suppose, would make her Ms. Graham’s---“

Will nods, glances at his face. He flashes a tight and tremulous smile. “Tallahassee Lassie.”

“Jesus.” Jack moves a hand over his mouth. “So what’s that mean to you? It must mean something, or you wouldn’t have mentioned it.”

“It’s…” Will shakes his head, takes a step back. He rubs his face and wipes his damp palms on his hips. “Alexandria, you said?”

Jack glances at the notebook. “That is what the lady said.”

“I...I had…”

“Hey.” Beverly touches his shoulder. “Will.” He flinches and she steps around, studies at his face. “You don’t look so good.”

His head pounds. His smile turns crooked. “Thanks.”

“No, I mean it, I’m serious.” She lifts up a hand, moves lank hair off his forehead. He pulls his head back. “You’re white as a sheet.” She touches his brow. He blinks. “And you’re covered in sweat.” She glances at her gloved fingertips. “You sure you’re okay?”

Will nods. “Yeah.” He tries to smile. His teeth chatter. “I’m okay.”

“Bullshit, Graham.” Beverly lays a hand on his forehead. He wrinkles his nose. Her eyes search his. “You’re burning up.” She lets her hand drop, moves away. “He’s burning up, seriously.” She takes her gloves off. “That fever’s a hundred and three at least.” She pulls a fresh pair out of her pocket. “He needs a hospital.”

“I don’t need a hospital, Bev.” A shiver twists through Will’s shoulders, wracks his spine. His head fills with pain. His breath comes out in fits and starts. “I’m f-fine.”

“Sure you are.” She snorts, shifts her weight. She folds her arms. “Over there with your fever and your dripping sweats and your galloping chills.”

A uniformed officer, standing on the boardwalk and leaning into the rail, raises her voice. “The closest hospital’s in Key Largo.”

“That’s a great idea,” says Jack, gesturing. “Go.”

Beverly halts. She looks at him. Her eyebrows go up. “You want me to take him, or…?”

“No.” Jack shakes his head. “No.” He points at the boardwalk. “Officer…” He leans in. “Fuentes can drive him.” He fixes Beverly with a glare, points to the sand. “I need you here.”

“But…”

Jack raises his voice. “Bag and tag, Katz.” He takes a step back, claps his hands. “Let’s step it up, folks, shall we?” His voice booms. “The sooner we’re done, the sooner we can all head back to bed.”

Beverly sighs, starts toward the sea end of the perimeter. “All right, all right,” she mutters.

“I don’t w-want…” Will closes his eyes, lets out a harsh and choppy breath. His skin crawls, prickles between heat and cold. “I don’t want Officer Fuentes to drive me anywhere…” He glances at her. “No offense.”

She smiles. “None taken, man.”

“All right, that’s it.” Beverly snaps off her gloves. “I’m going, Jack.” She strides around the perimeter, keeps her eyes on his face. “I’m taking him.” She shakes her head. “You can go ahead and write me up for it…hell, fire me if you have to.”

“I might just do that.”

“Go ahead.” She picks up her bag, shrugs. “I’ll appeal it.”

Will nods. It makes him dizzy. He takes a step and his ankle wavers, tilts his body to one side. He puts his arms out. “I should sit.”

“Come on, Graham.” She loops the strap over her shoulder. “Let’s get you to the ER before that fever gently poaches your six-million-dollar brain.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one's for you, sam  
> <3


	22. Practical Mermaid

Lumen’s mouth opens. Her chest expands and expands until it seems like it might break, the spaces between her ribs letting go.

_Swimmer_. The words float, untethered in her terror. _Mermaid-girl_.

She holds her chin up and doesn’t blink. She’s afraid of the woman taking advantage of that fleeting darkness, of her using it to commit stealth.

_And do what?_ Lumen studies the woman’s body. _She looks unarmed. Just her biceps, what a fucking gun show. Those mighty shoulders_.

Shadows slant across the woman’s face; the yellowing of the lamplight takes the tan in her skin and turns it red-gold. She looks back, hovers close to the door, her head half-turned and her eyes aslant; she’s lean, the long muscles in her thighs strong, the fine tremor of her hands and shoulders out of place on such a physique.

_Is she afraid of me?_ Lumen studies the lax curl of the woman’s---the intruder’s---fingers. _Is she afraid of herself?_ The long flat face, with its edgy cheekbones and sun-leathered skin, its pointed chin, that narrow mouth, looks…flinty. Hard. _Mysterious_. Lumen swallows. _Unloved_.

“Yes.” Lumen’s voice comes out rusted and crumbling, strained by her rushing air. “So…so did you do it from the hotel parking lot?” Her spine stiffens. She tosses back tangles of hair. “Make that call? Did you sit out there under the palms and watch his car until he came out and climbed in?”

The intruder-woman’s head shakes. It moves back and forth, happens fast, the movement sharp and fluttery; her voice is soft, small, high-pitched, she’s like a little girl who thinks if she cries hard enough, if she’s cute enough, it might slick up the grip of her lies. Loosen them. Her voice is breathy like a caricature, like Marilyn serenading a president. Lumen half-expects the flutter of eyelashes, the ghost of a simpering coquette to pass across the intruder’s face. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Lumen’s regard sharpens into a glare. Her voice lowers and the words prowl a little, growl a little. “Was it hard it not to follow?” Her eyes narrow. The skin under the blankets first turns damp, then slicks up with cold sweat. Her heart kicks at her ribcage, thrums hard enough to rattle her voice; her blood pounds in her clenched fingers. “Did it hurt you to stay behind?”

Intruder-woman, Stalker Swimmer Boater Barbie, all that multitasking, flinches.

“It did, didn’t it?” Lumen laughs and it’s soft, threadbare. “You wanted to, because you’ve done it before.” She watches the woman’s arms, the way those fine-tuned muscles twitch. “I bet it’s comforting to you by now.” She snorts, a soft sigh. “Will is very predictable, isn’t he?”

The woman’s mouth jumps. Her upper lip lifts up, hovers. A smile unfolds like a reflex. She half-crouches, shivers like an animal.

Lumen folds her legs, piles the blankets in her lap. “How long have you been stalking him, anyway?”

The woman straightens up. Her neck stiffens and the long thin mouth flushes a rosy shade of pink, smirks. One corner flashes into a smile. Her voice climbs, sweetens. She weaves her head through a slow sing-song motion. “Longer than you.”

Lumen’s lips flatten. Her face flushes and she folds her arms. She arches an eyebrow. Her nostrils flare. “How long is that, exactly?”

The intruder’s eyes crawl over Lumen’s face, drop to her neck. The woman of her, curious, comparing, assessing, studies Lumen’s chest, her shoulders, the mounds of her breasts. She wants to smile but can’t. Her cold blue eyes lose their shine. “Did you like fucking him?”

“You would…” Lumen shakes her head and holds her breath and covers her mouth, seized by a manic urge to laugh; she coughs into her fingers, takes an unsteady breath. She glances down. She rubs the corners of her mouth. “Really like to know, wouldn’t you?”

The woman’s head shakes. “We’re not going to make this about sex.” She purses her lips and her eyebrows go up, push wrinkles into her forehead. Her hardened face gets harder, tremors like it wants to crack. Her voice slides into a hiss. “We are not.”

“Yeah?” Lumen pulls the sheet up over her breasts, holds it there. “Why ask, then?”

* * *

 

Will slumps his way into Beverly’s car. There’s movement in the stillness, a rocking, it mimics the sound of the waves and when she climbs in, starts the engine, he starts to laugh.

“Something funny?” She puts the car in reverse, looks over her shoulder.

“Yeah, I’m…this feels like being in a boat.” Will shakes his head. “I know it’s not you, or the car, but…” He leans his head into the seat, closes his eyes. “Apparently, even whilst in the sweaty grip of febrile hallucinations,” he chuckles, “I am…still working.”

Beverly steers toward the road. Gravel pops and crunches. Her smile hovers in her voice. “Can’t quite get yourself out of the mindset of that yacht, huh?”

“I can feel it somewhere,” he murmurs. “In the back of my mind, how we must look from the water with so much…alien glaring light.” Will rolls down the window and soft air gushes in, full of salt and dark water still dreaming of sunlight. His eyes open. He turns toward her. “It’s too white, it tosses our long shadows out across the water and exaggerates all movement into something…sinister.”

She grins and her teeth gleam, white inside the blue dark. “Poetic.”

“Thanks.” He looks out the window. His eyes track the water until the car turns, casts the ocean view out the back windshield. His eyes roam the soft tangled shadow-shapes of trees. “You know, I had a student, six or seven years ago.”

“I do know, and it’s not exactly shocking.” She shrugs, glances at him. “Is it? Since you’re a teacher.”

“Such…” He wrinkles his brow. “Wiseassery, Katz.”

“What can I say.” She chuckles. “People adore me for it.”

“Ha.” Will grins, his eyes closing. He shifts his feet. “This wasn’t at Quantico, though.”

“Yeah…weren’t you teaching at the University of Virginia sometimes back then?”

“Yeah, a couple days a week, that was before…” Will chuckles a little. “The bureau decided I was far too valuable to share.”

Beverly laughs. “Yeah, I can see that.”

“The student, she was a woman, I think her name was…” He breathes out through his nose, shakes his head. “Sadie-something?” He looks at the car-ceiling. “Sarah, maybe? Wasn’t everyone born in the late eighties named Sarah?”

“Or Jennifer, or Jessica.” She steers up to the road.

“I think she was blonde, I can’t quite remember that, but I do remember that she was there on an athletic scholarship and she wrote this paper for my psychology of violence class that was…exceptional.”

“Yeah?” Beverly glances over her shoulder, turns into the lane. “What was her sport?”

Will wipes his mouth. He blinks, shakes his head. His eyebrows lift. “Swimming.”

“Of course.” The car picks up speed. She looks at him. “So are we talking exceptional creepy or exceptional good?”

“Exceptional good, it was…” Will rubs his mouth. “Brilliant.” Wind ruffles his hair off his forehead. “I’m embarrassed to admit that I’d let certain biases get the better of me and that I expected much less.”

“Because of the athletics?”

“Yeah.”

“Bad professor.”

“I know, I know.”

“So what was it about?” She keeps her eyes on the road. “The paper, I mean?”

“So…Sadie-Something Sarah Maybe.” He shrugs. “God I am so awful with names.”

Beverly chuckles.

“She presented an in-depth study of that particular case, the uh…” Will shifts in the seat. “Whole…Lethal Lovers of Grand Rapids thing.” He looks out the window. “She read all the transcripts of the interviews, watched all the footage. She studied the trial. She even did some independent investigative work on their backgrounds.” A shudder works through him and he grips his elbows. “It was…” His teeth chatter. “An exceptionally thorough piece of work.”

Her fingers flex on the wheel. “Uh huh.”

“Her proposed motive was unusual, but brilliantly so.” The shuddering simmers into a tremor. “It was also beautifully written.” The corners of his mouth twitch. He looks out the window. “I don’t give a lot of A-plus grades, so I tend to remember it when I do.”

“Right.”

“I’d have to re-read it to nail down the finer points, I should…” He lifts his hips, works shaking fingers into his front pocket. “Look it up, actually.” He pulls out his phone, holds it screen-down against his thigh. His breathing rattles in his throat. “Her working hypothesis focused on the intersection of narrative theory, theory of personality, and erotomanic delusions.”

Beverly glances at him. “You think she’s our perp?”

“Yeah.” Will closes his eyes and the darkness behind his lids swirls and pulses, crawls with faint stars. His spine twists. “She identified herself as…a-as Gwen Graham with her Tallahassee Lassie, it’s…a-a blatant attempt to identify herself because I’m not…” He purses his lips, forces air out through his nostrils. “Finding her clues fast enough, or not paying enough attention to her.”

* * *

 

The intruder’s flickering eyes dance across Lumen’s face, skip off to one side. Her mouth opens, teeth white. She laughs as she says it: “You’re not the only one, you know.”

“I…” Lumen blinks. Her eyebrows twitch together. She purses her lips, shakes her head. Her hands search for something to do, lie limp. “Didn’t think I was.” She tilts her head. Her eyes narrow. She lowers her voice. “Why would you say that to me?”

“There was another girl.” Intruder-woman’s eyes glitter for a hectic split-second and her lips pull back, baring teeth; it’s a poor imitation of a smile, the architecture of it sagging to splinters, the lips too wet, her eyes like holes in the ground. “Once upon a time.”

Lumen’s skin wracks itself into gooseflesh. Her spine turns to ice and breath goes brittle, crackles inside her throat.

“She was pretty, like you.” Her gaze lingers in Lumen’s hair. “Her hair was short, though. Cute like a pixie and dark too.”

Lumen’s breathing slows. Her body goes still like an animal’s does and she grips the blankets, her muscles fighting off the urge to shake.

“One day, she came outside. It was in the morning like it was so early, still dark even, but…” The woman looks up at the ceiling, her big body awkward and held-in, girlish. She stands there, the room a wrong fit, the door too close, and her voice hollows out before dragging off into a forlorn note. “I was there.”

Lumen’s throat clenches. Her stomach does too and she holds her breath, her skin dripping sweat. She swallows the threat of bile.

“She fought me, she was all thrash and hiss.” The woman laughs. “Like a kitten will, you know, a cat that doesn’t like being held. So I got her up against her little blue car, and I put my hands on her neck.” The woman stares off. “The front.” She lifts her own hands and rests them, cradles her throat between thumbs and forefingers. “Here.” Her face relaxes. Her shoulders slump into softness and her voice turns misty. “She was so little. I pushed down on her, I…I did it til the inside of her throat went _snap_.”

_Jesus Christ_. Lumen’s skin goes morgue-cold. _She looks…nostalgic_. Her jaws are clenched so tight her teeth want to crack. _Like this is a fond memory to her because it probably is, holy shit, this woman is_ … Her eyes ache. _Gone, she’s not in the real world at all_.

“Then I took her to the edge of the land. I carried her there like a bride. To his land, he has lot of it, you know, and it’s very beautiful. I made her bed in the ground. I buried her there. I picked a place so far from the road and from his house that no one saw me. It was by the stream. I put her down and covered her in earth and then I drove her car far far away. The little blue car went to sleep in a lake. Her empty body went to sleep in the ground. I waited for him to know that she was there, I waited for him to find her, but…” She shakes her head. “He didn’t.”

“You buried…” Lumen’s voice shakes. She swallows. Her breath quickens and flutters and she holds it down, cradles her rioting stomach. “You’re saying that you ambushed his girlfriend and killed her and then buried her on his property.” She breathes hard. The tone of her voice wavers, goes from thin to sharp. Her mouth stays open. The urge to cry an ache beneath her skin. Spit flies from her lips. “That is a fucked-up way to love somebody.”

“No, no, I…” Intruder-woman shakes her head, holds out her hands. She shakes them too, little girl adamant and erasing. “No, I know it was bad.” Her feet step up and down. “That if I didn’t fix it, it would look like he did it. I remembered that if people found her there they would think _he_ was the one who disappeared her, so I went back in the night later, much later, when he was gone away. I pulled her up out of the dirt. His dirt. I moved her.” The woman giggles, shakes her head. “She smelled so bad. So bad. Her body was gone. A ruin. Just all slippery bones and slime and mud. I was moving her and I thought…I bet you don’t want to fuck her now, Will.” She pins her gaze on Lumen’s face. She grins. “I thought, I bet you don’t like her any more now.”

Lumen’s eyebrows knot. She slides a hand over her mouth, her breath gone rampaging into her skin. Her eyelashes flutter.

* * *

 

Will’s skin floats. He turns buoyant, his bones loose, crawly simmering heat drifting up and into his mouth.

“I absolutely do.” It’s hard for him to find his own words. They slide off his breath, trip up inside his throat. “I knew there was something off about this, the feel of it is all wrong, like…like the obvious things had been all laid out in a neat line like that because that’s…that’s what most people look for, neat lines, a tidy package, most people need it to be all…” He finds his lungs, uses them to scoff. “Tied up with a bow but not me.” He touches his burning wet face. He licks his lips. “She wants me to catch her…just me.” His eyes roll toward Beverly. “No one else.”

“You mad at yourself?”

“Yeah…a little.”

“Don’t be.” She pats his kneecap. “You’re not yourself, you’re quite ill, I mean…who knows how long you’ve had this…” She shrugs. “Whatever it is you’ve got?” Her hand takes hold of the wheel. “It’s a serious consideration.” She glances at his gleaming face. “If you’ve had some kind of an occult infection for…the last couple of weeks, the last month, that’s definitely enough to compromise your performance.”

He sighs. He leans his cheek into the headrest and turns, pins the corner of his mouth between the upholstery and half-mumbled words. The miles hum and bump, sway into his skin. His eyelids droop. “I don’t think it’s compromised my performance.”

“Okay.” Beverly takes in a breath. “So how about your…” She glances at him. “Uh…” She shakes her head. “Transylvanian lady love?”

Will’s whole head flushes with thick heat. He grins, chuckles a little. He rolls his eyes.

“Well, at least I assume it’s a lady love.” Her grin lightens the sound of her voice. “But I suppose it could be a gentleman love, right?”

“No, it’s…” His voice slumps, softens into breath. He stretches, his muscles fluttering. “It’s a woman.”

Beverly flexes her fingers. Her grin slants. “Have you been distracted, Will?”

He glances out the window. “Maybe.” He watches the trees pass by, peeks up at the sprawl of sky. The stars make him dizzy. He squeezes his eyes shut. “A little,” he mutters.

“You want to talk about it?”

He shakes his head. “Not particularly, no.”

“Well, then…you want to talk to me about this woman’s paper?” She rolls her window down, raises her voice over the roar of the wind. “Your student? I mean…if they were girlfriends, how does erotomania play in? Isn’t that the stalker disease, like…” She tightens her mouth, glances in the rearview. “Some cat lady living in a trailer park outside Poughkeepsie thinks Dan Rather’s in love with her because he…likes to wear pink ties on Fridays?”

Will slumps down in the seat. His head rolls back and he laughs a slow husky drawled-out laugh. “That’s some A-plus stereotyping, Agent Katz.” He slurs his words. “Wow…no really.” He chuckle-breathes, his shoulders shaking. “That’s some nice work.”

“Look.” Her voice sharpens, turns light. “I am just trying to keep you awake here, okay? If making fun of me does that, I am all for it, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah.” He nods. “Okay.”

“You feel like you’re going to pass out?”

“Drift off, maybe. But not…pass out.” His eyelids droop, hover at half-mast. “Not like syncope.” Sweat prickles his back, his forehead. He shivers. “I am not gonna faint on you, Bev.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah.” Will’s mouth twitches in and out of a smile. “It is.”

“Tell me about the paper. You’ve got me intrigued.”

“Okay, uh…” He murmurs it. “Her central hypothesis was that the bodies themselves were love letters but not…not like the way you’d think. It wasn’t about the idea that the murders would tie them together via a threat of blackmail, or incarceration, the way it has been portrayed in various media, it was the bodies themselves.” His body, overheated, slumps toward bonelessness; he feels adrift on her wheels. The wind glides over his face. “It was the women---the victimology, and they were all women, by the way.”

* * *

 

Lumen’s hand creeps across her face. Her eyes fill with tears. The fingers shake.

“I washed the dirt even, so there would be nothing left.” The woman’s voice drifts. The air-conditioner hums beneath it, fills it with cold. “There’s a stream there, and it washed dirt for me.”

“What did you…?” Lumen wipes her eyes. Her voice is papery, rustling. She coughs. “Do with her?” She forces herself to look in the woman’s eyes. “Where did you…” She forces out a hesitant breath. “Where did she go?”

“To the sea.”

It hits her belly like a blow. It reverberates in her breath. “So you’re the mermaid girl, then.”

“This body…” Intruder-woman looks down; the longer she stays in the room, the more time crawls by, the more disjointed the shape of her body becomes, the more rebellious the shadows turn. “Isn’t enough, I needed to make other bodies for myself, I needed…” She balls up her fists. She bounces them on her hard hips. “I needed to _project_ myself onto a form that he could…that he would…”

Lumen slides backward. She presses her back up against to the headboard and her hand moves beneath the blankets, gropes toward the edge of the mattress.

The woman looks up.

Lumen blinks, goes still. Her breath stops.

The woman wipes her nose with her forearm. “That he would see.” She shifts her weight from one foot to the other. She covers her cheeks with her hands. Her eyes are like shark’s eyes. “Will doesn’t see like you and me, they are…” She shakes her head, lets her hands drop. “They are idolized _forms_.”

Lumen lets her breath leak out. Her chest slumps. She nods.

The woman slaps the back of one hand into the palm of another.

Lumen jumps. She grabs the blankets. Her eyes sting and her throat clenches; she widens her eyes, clenches her jaws.

“A body is a _text_.” She slaps her hipbones again, does it hard; she grunts with the effort, her mouth grimacing. “A body is a _story_.” She bares her teeth and squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head, the movement rapid, a whipping, back and forth. It loosens her hair. “Don’t you know that?” The tight bun begins to sag. “Don’t you _know_ that?”

_Oh my God_. They’re the only words with the strength to struggle up out of her body’s cold swoon. _Oh my God. Oh my God_. Lumen’s mouth opens. Her eyes water. Her breath races. _Oh my God_.

“A text needs to be perfect.” The woman’s eyes open. Dark. Blank. “A body…it needs perfection. The symbol, the referent, needs to be perfect, understanding must have the room to happen, and I…I am too big for this.” She slaps her hard belly. “Body, I don’t…” She grabs her breasts, shakes them until her chest-skin jiggles. “Have enough _bodies_. Just one, this one, it’s not _enough_. What you need to see---you, whoever you are, you the person---is that I took those girls and made them me.” She points at Lumen’s head. She jabs with her finger. “I then I took those boys, and I made them me too, because…” She takes a big breath and her voice calms. “I know how.” Her eyes never leave Lumen’s face. “Because I can.”

“My name is Lumen.” Her legs are numb. Her fingers cold, her arms too. Rimmed with chill, she can’t feel her nostrils. “Uh…Lumen Pierce.” It takes strength to hold her smile in place, to lighten her voice. “What’s yours?”

“Sarah.” Her eyes dart all around the inside of the room. She pulls in a deep breath and tries to smile. Her mouth wavers, goes limp. “Sarah Madison.”

* * *

 

Will floats in and out of sleep. He watches the winding yellow lines.

“They were stanzas in a poem, or a narrative presented between them, back and forth, in chapters.” He rubs his eyes. “The bodies of the women they murdered became human chapbooks to be read and understood within a…a-a closed system of referents, an alternate reality enclosed between them with its own tautology, with memetics and semiotics that didn’t have to obey the written and unwritten rules of the outside world in order to…perform relevance.”

“A society of two?”

“Yeah, basically.”

Will’s eyes drift closed. The momentum carries him into a place of heat, wetness, the sweat singing in his skin. Imagery flickers in the dark of him. It whispers.

“You okay over there?”

“Yeah,” he murmurs.

_It ain’t your fault, the lady in the ground_.

Will twitches all over, breath jerking out of his throat. His eyes open and he knows he’s dreaming; there’s enough engine-sound still humming, enough wind happening, he can smell all the waters of Florida and its heavy humid breath, the way it always smells salted and musty and laden with flowers. Beverly turns on the radio, or at least he thinks she does; locked in this space, trapped behind his own skin, the cues of his senses are mobile, tricky.

He sees the nightscape of his home. It’s summer, a blue-black velvet dark tuned full of crickets and frogs, blinking with fireflies, no lights on in the house, no dog-noise, no car in the drive, just the stars overhead and quiet of the woods that isn’t quiet at all.

Even the ground is too hot.

_It’s me, I’m too hot_ , he thinks. _My body the earth on fire and the water table of my blood too deep for casual digging_.

He leaves the roadside, wades out into the field. The grass is waist-high and smells of lightning. He drags behind him the wind, a car humming, some song coming out of the past like a teenager’s idea of a party. He smells the ocean but there’s less of it.

“I am all the way asleep, I guess, and not just hallucinating.”

The insect noise dips down, rises back up.

Will sits on the ground. The grass is dry, sharp.

“No one asked me about Molly.” He looks at the sky. “No one wants to know where she went.”

“Do you know where she went?”

Will’s head turns.

Bev is there. She’s sitting beside him, the grass high all around her, wearing a dress that keeps changing; the colors of it, blues and silvered grays, pale pinks, even paler yellows, pulse and flutter. He thinks _butterflies_ and the imagery of it locks into place. She becomes covered with lazy butterflies. Her folded thighs crawl with bright blue wings.

“I guess I don’t, not really.” He shrugs, watches her slow coruscation of butterfly wings. “I thought that she was just…you know.”

“I know.” She nods. “Yeah, that she was done with you.” She looks at him and the hem of her skirt lets go, flies up into her hair. “Boom, disappear. Gone baby gone. Ghosting at its finest, right?”

“Yeah.” Will licks his lips, tastes blood. “Something like that.”

“What if she didn’t?”

Will looks deep into the shadows of the fields. “For weeks I dreamed that she was buried on the property somewhere.” He mumbles it. “Sometimes it was the front lawn, sometimes the side, there’s always a hedgerow that isn’t really there. Sometimes it’s down by the water and the stream washes her free but by then it’s just…” He shrugs. “Bones, hair, shreds of clothes left. But I thought that it was just…high-flyin metaphors, you know? Just a fancy.” He waves a hand. “My brain is prone to such…” A cloud of fireflies loosens its grip on the grass, takes off. He watches it pop and blink into nothing. “Flights of nonsense.”

“It’s prone to a lot of things, Will,” she says, her voice laughing and jagged at the same time, “but none of them are nonsense.” She looks at him. “You know it, too.”

“You think something happened to Molly?”

“No.” Bev shakes her head. “You think something happened to Molly.” Blue butterflies abandon her dark hair, make clouds of shadows on her face. “I’m not really here, this is…something like a dream. I’m driving the car that you’re sleeping in right now.” She tilts her head. “Can you still hear it?”

“Yeah.” He nods. “I can feel it, too, but barely.”

She grins. “I’m probably pissed, too. I’ve been trying to keep you awake.”

“I know.” Will runs a hand over his face. “You probably are.”

“This…girl.” Bev brushes butterflies off her legs. Some of them cling to her fingertips. They rustle like thin paper, like silk. “Practical mermaid, brilliant swimmer with the weird paper and the habit of slinging out heavy hints.” She stands. “She killed Molly.” She holds out a hand, butterflies lifting up off her knuckles. “You know that’s where she went, Will.”

He takes it. Her grip hurts and he winces. She steps back, hauls him to his feet. Blood rushes to his head. Jagged pain happens behind his temples, sparks in the roots of his teeth, burrows into the backs of his eyes. The landscape throbs.

“Yeah,” he mutters. “I do.”

“Molly really liked you.” Bev sighs. “She mighta gotten tired of your bullshit, who knows. But if she had, she wouldn’t have gone out like this. She had too much respect for you.” She studies his face. “She liked you. You know it, too. She wouldn’t have left you without a trace.”

“It ain’t my fault, the lady in the ground,” he whispers.

“No,” she sighs. “It’s not.”

* * *

 

“Madison.” Lumen forces herself to smile, to chuckle. “Like the mermaid in _Splash_.”

Sarah nods. Her smile flickers on and off her face, secret. “Uh huh.”

“He’ll…” Lumen swallows. “He will get that, he will, you know that.” Her voice cracks. “Right?”

“I know that,” Sarah snaps. “But the real question here, Lumen, is this one: do you know? Do you? I mean…can you? Do you know how to know? Can even think past what you do with your cunt?”

Lumen blinks. Her cheeks redden. “Of course I can.” She stirs her numb feet, unfolds her legs. She inches closer to the nightstand. “Obviously you can.” She snorts, rolls her eyes. “I mean…obviously, right? Look at you, over there, wanting nothing to do with sex. You won’t even talk about it. Is that a triumph for you, Sarah? Is your flesh tame?”

Sarah’s voice wavers. “We are not talking about me, Miss Pierce.” Her tone turns sugary, prissy. It sharpens. It cracks. “Now are we?”

“No, Miss Madison.” Lumen clenches her jaws. Her face is hot. “I suppose…I suppose we are not.”

Sarah studies the outline of Lumen’s body. “Can you?”

“Yes.” Lumen nods. “Uh...” She pushes on the mattress, lifts up. “So.”

Sarah looks at her, her eyes wide.

“Um…” Lumen moves hair aside. She looks at Sarah’s eyes. “How many of you are there? How many…” She lets out a short, sharp breath. She shakes her head. “Bodies?”

“Facets!” Sarah’s voice turns shrill. “You ask me the right way.” Her mouth twists into a snarl. “Don’t you disrespect me.” She rocks back and forth, her weight shifting. “Don’t you even.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Lumen breathes, “I…didn’t mean to disrespect you, facets is the word. It’s the right word.” She smiles, the corners of her mouth trembling. She laughs, gasps with it. “Like a jewel, right? Something to contain so much light that it…that it hurts to see it.” Her head spins. “A text of light, changing when you turn it. It hurts to look at it but it should, right? The truth should hurt but it always hurts in the best way.”

Sarah’s face softens. “Yes.” Her voice swoons into the delicacy of a doll’s voice, takes on that kind of animatronic babyish glee. The look in her eyes cracks, a blue-black like deep-winter thaws and lake ice. Light disappears in her pupils. “That is the way to see it, just like that. You know.” She tilts her head. “You are very pretty, Lumen.” She nods. “Smart too.”

Lumen doesn’t glance at the nightstand. “Thank you.”

“Now I am a beautiful text, made of bodies.” Her smile is slow, dawning; it brightens her face into something close to human. “Thanks to those bodies, there are five of them, because that’s how many. Five days. There’s so much of me now, so much light and red that it can carry on for forever and five days. It’ll last.” Sarah nods. “I’ll live forever and five days, that’s the goal of the body. That’s all of it, that’s the story.” She grins, holds her arms out. “It’s the whole thing.”

The hotel room phone rings.

Lumen’s skin tightens. Her heart fills with thunder.

Sarah’s head jerks back.

It rings again.

Sarah gasps.

Lumen flinches, dives for the nightstand drawer.


	23. Ringing and Ringing and Ringing

Lumen claws at the drawer. The muscles in her waist wrench and spasm, scream at her to stop. She doesn’t. She yanks the drawer open, knows by the heavy sliding thud, that vibration of impact: he left the gun behind.

Her legs kick at the blankets, feet pushing for leverage. The inside of her mouth puckers, floods itself with spit. Her gut lights up.

Sarah yells something but the phone’s shrill ringing riddles her voice with exit wounds.

Lumen’s hand dives in.

“What are you---!”

Lumen’s fingers shake on the holster. She grabs, hauls the gun into her lap.

The shrieking phone keeps on, the ring of it metallic and piercing.

Sarah’s confusion, how lost she is, out of place; her body disjoints the space in front of the door, her face roll-eyed and shivering.

Lumen wrestles the leather off the metal, clenches its grip. Lifts.

Sarah’s eyes find the gun-shape and widen.

The barrel of the gun shakes. Lumen’s fingertip gropes and slides, then caresses. It pushes. The safety releases, makes a click she can feel. She eases out a long trembling breath.

“Did you know that was there?” Sarah’s eyes are huge, her voice accusatory. “The whole time?” Like they’re teenage friends at a slumber party and Lumen’s promise just broke. “Did you know?”

The phone keeps ringing. And ringing. And ringing.

Lumen touches the trigger guard and the tremor calms inside her wrist. She straightens her forearm. Tilts her head. She lifts an arm, braces her wrist with the other hand. She tastes a trace of metal. “Don’t move.”

“Or what?”

Lumen’s voice thickens, rustles in her mouth. “I’ll shoot you but I’ll do it in your legs.” Her breath slows. “I’m a good shot, too.”

Sarah says nothing. Does nothing. She stays by the door, doesn’t move. Only her chest moves, goes up and down. Erratic. Lumen glares at her.

The phone’s bell burrs and jangles its way into a tensed-up silence.

Sarah jerks her chin. “You gonna answer that?”

“You think I should?”

“The fuckin noise is going right in my head.”

Lumen’s eyes narrow. Sarah’s eyes flicker at the phone and her eyes soften at the corners, her mouth raw, her breath tensing up.

“You think it’s Will, don’t you?”

Sarah looks at her.

“You do.” Lumen nods. “You really think I’m gonna let you talk to him?”

The phone keeps ringing. It’s strident, an invasion.

Sarah watches her.

“I’m not.” Lumen uncradles her wrist. She reaches, finger-walks from the edge of the nightstand to the phone’s slick plastic body. The barrel of the gun stays still. “So don’t hold your fucking breath.”

The noise vibrates into her skin, tickles the spaces between the bones. She grabs the handset.

Sarah’s eyes follow the lift of her hand. Her nostrils flare. Her mouth trembles.

The blaring ring cuts off. Lumen covers her ear. “Hello?”

There’s nothing on the other end but humming silence.

“Hello?” Lumen grips the phone. Her voice sharpens. She keeps her eyes on Sarah’s. “Who is this?”

“I must confess that did not expect to hear your voice.”

Blood rushes to Lumen’s face. The skin on her head and shoulders gets hot. Her scalp crawls. Her cheeks throb.

“I am…” Hannibal clears his throat. “Surprised, to say the least.”

Lumen’s breath quickens. “I didn’t expect to hear yours.”

“Are you alone?”

“No.”

“Is Will there?”

Lumen’s mouth opens. “No.” She pulls in an unsteady breath. “He is not.”

“I must apologize for waking you at this hour.” In the back of Hannibal’s voice, muttering, a warm and distant thunder. “But I have been unable to reach him. I must confess that I am a bit concerned.”

“He…” Lumen swallows, her voice a rattled whisper. “He w-won’t answer his cell?”

“My texts remain unanswered and all calls go to voice mail.”

“Try…t-try…”

Tenderness simmers into his words. “You did say that you are not alone, yes?”

“Yes,” she half-whispers.

There’s a rustling in the background. “Shall I call 911?”

“Yes.” She blows out a breath. “Please.”

“Lumen, I want you to listen to me.” Huskiness enters Hannibal’s voice. “Will you do that for me?”

“Yes, I…I will.”

“Is the perpetrator of these murders in the room with you now?”

Lumen tightens her grip on the gun. She nods. Her voice thins out. “Yes.”

“Is he armed?”

“It’s…” Lumen tucks the phone between shoulder and chin. “I-It’s a woman.” Her palms sweat. “Uh, m-mister Gr---” She shakes her head, her brow furrowing. “W-Will…I mean Will.”

Lumen stares at Sarah and Sarah stares back, her mouth lax, her cheeks smooth, her eyes still.

“Will’s profile.” Lumen’s fingers flex, relax. She swallows. Her forehead slicks with sweat. Her ears pulse with heat. “That part of it was wrong.”

“Is she armed?”

“No.”

“I see. Are you?”

“I am.”

“What is she doing?”

“She’s by the door.” Lumen’s voice turns scratchy. “I…I-I threatened to shoot her legs.”

“Would you describe her to me, please?”

“Six feet Caucasian blonde.” Lumen’s breathing stutters. “Former swimmer, extremely lean and muscular. She has a long face. Huge shoulders.”

Sarah rolls her eyes, folds her arms tight across her chest. She scowls. She looks around, crowds up close to the door. Her body posture winds itself tighter and tighter, hums into fidgeting.

“She says her name is Sarah Madison.”

“I am going to call 911 using the hotel room phone.” Hannibal’s voice dims, falls away. “I have put my cell phone down but I can still hear you.” Distant. “Please stay on the line.”

“Yes.” The phone slips and she jerks her shoulder, turns her head. She pins it with her chin. “I will.”

“So it’s not Will on the phone after all.” Sarah studies Lumen’s face. “Who is it, then?” Her eyes follow the lines of Lumen’s forearms, rest on the barrel of the gun. “Is it that Korean girl he hangs out with?”

 _Beverly_. Lumen takes one shaking hand off the gun, wipes wet fingers on the rumpled sheets. _She’s talking about Beverly_. She shifts the gun from one hand to the other. The grip is hot. She rubs the damp off her palm. “No.”

Sarah grins. “Is it your fancy boyfriend?”

Lumen snorts, rolls her eyes. Her lips tighten into a thin line. “No.”

“I think yes.” Sarah’s grin melts into a furtive smile. “I do, I do. I saw that blush.” She giggles. “Bet he was surprised when it was you who picked up that phone.” She leans the back of her head into the door, looks up, laughs. “Who knew you were such a slut?” Laughter breezes into indulgent, girlish giggles. “I bet Mr. Fancy Pants didn’t.” She jerks her chin at the phone. “He does now, though.” Her body softens toward a slump. Giggling deflates into snickering. “Hoo boy.”

“Fuck you,” Lumen snaps. “And stop talking.”

“Oh what’s wrong?” Sarah’s voice sweetens, drips sugar. She tilts her head. “Is he mad?” Her smile creeps across her face and widens, long white teeth unsheathing. “He had no idea, did he?”

“I said,” Lumen goes on, her eyebrows lifting, her voice sharpening, “to stop talking.”

“Or what?” Sarah’s hip slings to one side. Her shoulders jerk, loosen up the fold of her arms. “You’ll shoot me?” Her hands dangle. “Is that what you’ll do?”

Lumen’s eyes narrow. Her mouth twists. “Maybe I will.”

“Ha! Good luck explaining that one.”

“Lumen,” Hannibal murmurs.

“Oh?” Lumen’s voice raises. “You mean about how you broke into my room at one-something in the morning while I was _sleeping_? That’ll take maybe five minutes.”

“Do not allow her to push your buttons,” Hannibal continues, the lazy cadence of his words mellowing into a sigh. “Perhaps she’s inviting a suicide by proxy.” The tone of his voice remains mild. “I cannot say for sure, but I can advise you not to give it to her simply because she’s leveraged your emotions in order to provoke that particular end result out of you.”

Lumen pulls in a ragged breath. She presses her lips together and nods, exhales through her nose. “You’re right.”

“Does Ms. Madison seem agitated to you?”

Sarah’s mouth twitches. She tosses her head. Her face pulls on an ill-fitting bladelike saccharine smile and she shifts her weight from heel to toe, bounces her body up and down. She looks up. “Not your room, though,” she sing-songs.

Lumen aims the gun at the scoop-neck of her t-shirt. “That doesn’t matter,” she growls, “because I have business here and you don’t.”

“In this moment, you certainly appear to be the agitated one.”

“Business.” Sarah snorts. “Horizontal mambo business. Pound the Posturepedic business.” She folds her arms tight across her chest, rolls her eyes. “Hide-the- _salami_ business.”

“God!” The volume of her own voice startles her, her heartbeat doubling. “What is your problem with sex?” Her stomach clenches. “For someone who doesn’t want to make any of this about sex, you sure do keep bringing it up!”

“Lumen, please listen to me.”

“Yes…” Lumen struggles to calm her breath. “Yes, I’m listening.”

“The police will be there soon.” Hannibal lowers his voice. “I have alerted Jack to the situation, though it will take some time for him to return to Miami. He is currently at an Islamorada crime scene.” There is a pause. “Though I imagine you already know that.”

Lumen’s face burns. “Yes, I…” Her arms shake and ache. Her voice weakens. “I already know.”

“He will arrive long after the dust has settled, and when that time comes he will want a statement from you.”

“Yes.” Lumen’s eyes get hot, the lids thick and weighted; the image of Sarah’s face blurs. Her eyelashes flutter. “I know he will.”

“You say that Ms. Madison broke into Will’s room while you were sleeping.”

“Yes.” Lumen’s nostrils ache and a tremor happens in her chin. Her jaws ache, too. “That is what happened.”

“It seems that she thought to draw Will away from his warm bed in order that she might occupy it herself for a time. Or perhaps she wanted to breathe the same air, or to touch his garments in lieu of skin.”

“Yes, she…she was going through his suitcase when I woke up.”

“I see. In certain cases of erotomania, this sort of behavior is not at all unusual.”

“I…I don’t know.” Lumen’s breathing flutters. “I didn’t…” She grits her teeth. “I didn’t ask.”

“I would like to stay on the line with you until they arrive.” Hannibal clears his throat. “Unless, of course, you’d like for me to accompany the police.”

“I…I don’t know.”

“I can do both, if you like.”

Her throat gets tighter, her cheeks soaked.

“Tell me.”

“What?”

“Do you want to shoot her, Lumen?”

“Yes.” The word itself shoots out of her and her blood backs up in her chest, the insides of her arms singing their exhaustion, the weariness in her curved fingers threatening; her breath catches beneath her collarbones. It trembles. “I do.” She blinks and tears make lines on her skin. Water chills her cheeks. “I want to.”

“I know.” His words are quiet; they dream of the prowl. “Your wanting, Lumen,” he says after a handful of seconds, his voice warming. It weaves rough silk into the controlled rhythm of his breath. “Where does it live in your body?”

“My…” She adjusts her grip on the gun. The pads of her fingers are wet, going numb. “My skin.” One nail touches the curve of the trigger. The hard edge of it scrapes, catches on her breath. “It’s…” The muscles along the insides of her thighs tense. Her knees touch. Her belly jerks and hollows and twitches, fills with a trembling weakness. “Just underneath it’s like a tingling but it’s…”

 _Hot_ , her mind whispers, a flush slinking down over her collarbones.

“Hot?”

Lumen’s mouth opens. She blinks. Her scalp fills with wet fire, her heart pounding the underside of her chest. It rattles her ribs. It beats up her lungs. “Yes,” she half-whispers.

“Good,” he half-whispers back. “Now.” His voice gathers into itself, turns muscular. “Where in your body is the rage?”

“My…” She breathes through her mouth. “M-My face.” Goosebumps climb the back of her neck, stiffen hairs into needles. “It’s tight in my…my neck.” A subtle pulse, thick and soft, curls up. It lodges behind her navel and fresh heat floods her skin. “My…” Her voice slithers in and out of a harsh whisper. Sweat sprinkles her hairline. There’s a fleeting desire to close her eyes. “Belly.”

“Is that hot, too?”

His voice happens without the slight breathiness she didn’t know she was expecting; there’s no husk in it, no velvet or thunder or wild honey, no simmering blood, no sanctified smoke. He strips it bare. He leaves its timbre to exist in a dry place.

It rumbles like thunder, though. It kicks her in the soft parts of her gut, tricks her womb into a slow sweet velvety contraction that squeezes the breath out of her throat. Her eyes widen.

One finger loosens her grip on the gun. She traces the sharp edge of the trigger guard. In her mind’s eye a flash happens; the kick, a smell of brimstone and bullets stitching tiny red flowers in the black.

Heat spikes up her spine.

“It’s okay if it is. There is a fire to living and I expect that you might feel the heat of those flames in a place where the fuel for them tends to…collect.”

Lumen’s eyelids tremble. Her breath flutters and a thin layer of gooseflesh drapes across her shoulders; it settles, a breathed whisper trailing a delicate prickling down to the small of her back. Like a shadow falling. A touch. Her skin shudders.

He brings the silk back up to his tongue, drowns it in honey. He steers the weight of his voice past her navel. He blows it through her skin. Her muscles tense, then relax. Her skin feels like it’s floating. The rumble of him shivers into her blood. She shivers right back.

“You have not killed a woman before, have you?”

The room brightens. The walls waver, the shadows on Sarah’s face sharpening until her lines, the boundaries of her flesh, grow crisp. Sarah’s chest heaves. An animal expression creases her mouth. The deadness of her eyes gains a slight sheen, her thin cheeks generating a red stain.

“No,” Lumen whispers.

“Would it please you to see her die?”

Such a gentle penetration. His words are barely there at first until the blood between her legs catches up, all striving pulse, heat, a throb. Her breath balances on the back of her tongue. The gun hovers. Propped by her arms, her shoulders, her body, it neglects gravity.

But there’s a determination in her, still. Buried somewhere. Her will.

Lumen blinks. Looks at the gun. She studies it and the shape comes alive in her hands, the awkwardness. Its weight yearning for rest.

 _My will_.

“It wouldn’t please Will,” she says, her voice waking up.

“No.” His voice is all rustle and the echo of wind. “I don’t suppose it would.”

There’s a thudding on the door. A fist pounds.

Lumen winces.

Sarah jumps, utters a rusty squeak.

Lumen’s forearms jolt, the muscles in her neck and shoulders sparking a dull bone-deep ache. The gun’s dead weight in her hands.

“Lumen!” Deb’s voice, muffled through the door. Her knuckles tap tap tap, light and quick. “I’m out here with four other guys, okay? We’re coming in now.”

The key-card finds its way into the slot. The door lock hums, clicks open.

Sarah glances over her shoulder. She looks confused.

“Uh.” The sweat on Lumen’s face thickens, turns oily. Her teeth chatter. “The police,” she whispers, her body shaking. “They’re here.”

“Yes. I know.”

* * *

  
_We are_

_We_

_…are taking you_

When Will’s awake, he’s in a white room. Curtains ripple with busy feet. Light cuts into his eyes. The fist of his brain rotates, grinds raw knuckles against the inside of his skull. His legs a hot weight. Eyes clenched. Breath whimpering.

He looks up. Sometimes the ceiling tiles are just that, but then they’re water, sometimes shallow, often deep. He smells the Gulf and a wind strained through tall cypress and pecan trees, cloudbellies full of waiting rain, flowers. The tiles float on the water. They sink, bob a little, sometimes. He goes in and out of sleep the way his breath goes in and out of his lungs.

… _you scared the_

_Shit out of me_

_Graham_

When Will’s asleep, it’s better. In his sleep, things know what they are. Decisions are made.

… _you had a_

_Seizure_

_In the parking lot_

A ceiling is a ceiling and water goes where it needs to be. He knows where the wind, when a wind exists, comes from. He can point and say…there’s a lake. This, the inside of a room. Beyond that, a horizon.

… _we are_

_Taking you_

_To_

_Miami_

* * *

  
The hotel room door opens.

Lumen blinks.

The door hits Sarah in the back. A big male police officer muscles his way into the room; it happens with a startle of breath, his mouth moves and words come out in a disjointed baritone and when he puts his hands on Sarah her back stiffens up.

Deb slips by. She’s got her gun in one hand, muzzle pointed to the floor.

Another big male police officer enters, shifts the air in the room around. Sarah’s eyes get so wide. Her mouth opens and it’s like a yawn, the beginning of an animal sound. The officers take her arms and she screams and screams.

Deb walks to the bed. Wincing at the noise. Her face pale.

Lumen lets out a long shaky breath.

Deb holsters her gun. She extends a hand. She keeps her eyes on Lumen’s face. Gentle and soft, she covers Lumen’s tensed-up fingers with hers.

Lumen’s breath backs up, hovers beneath her clenched throat.

“It’s okay,” Deb says.

Lumen closes her eyes. “The safety isn’t on,” she whispers.

Deb slides a finger past hers, pushes on the metal. Lumen’s tendons groan.

“It is now.”

Lumen opens her eyes in time to see Deb’s body settle onto the edge of the bed. She smells like coffee, like dream-sweat. She looks tired. She leans in to study Lumen’s face and her mouth tries for a brief smile. She breathes out through her nose. The smile twitches, slants, falls off.

“You can put it down now,” she murmurs.

Lumen blinks. Nods.

In the background, beside the door, Sarah lunges. She kicks and screams and writhes until it takes all four of the men to knock her feet out from under her.

The phone thunks onto the mattress. Lumen loosens the grip of her fingers. The gun disentangles, drops into Deb’s palms.

“It’s Will’s.”

Deb nods, moves the gun to a nightstand. She shakes the loose hair out of her face. “I know.”

Her wrists worn with weight, Lumen shifts her arms. She’s tentative. It hurts. She hisses in breath, brings her forearms in close to her body. “Where is Will?”

Deb nods at the fallen phone. “That Dr. Lecter?”

“Yeah.” Lumen nods. “It is.”

Deb turns, leans over. She replaces the phone. She gathers up the blankets.

Lumen’s eyes track Deb’s face. She cradles her arms, holds limp half-curled hands against her navel. Deb lifts the sheet. She covers Lumen’s bare chest with it.

Lumen injects strength back into her voice. “Where’s Will?”

Deb rips off the bedspread. She shakes it out, hauls it up, wraps it tight around Lumen’s shoulders. Around her feet the scuffling of kittens, hiding away from noise. She doesn’t notice. Instead, she glances into Lumen’s eyes. Her mouth twitches into a line. “You’re gonna have to talk with someone who isn’t me about that.”

“What?” Lumen watches her eyes. Her voice gets louder. “What does that mean?”

“It means…I don’t have any information.” She stands, looks around the room. “Hey.” Her fingers curl and uncurl. “I can grab your phone, if I can find it, and you can look.” She takes a few steps, squats. “Maybe he’s tried to call you by now.”

“The phone’s under the covers.”

Deb looks over Lumen’s face. “Oh.”

“Yeah, I…I thought I might get a chance to use it.” Lumen shakes her head. “It’s on silent anyway, so.” She shrugs. “I wouldn’t know.”

Deb tosses the purse onto the bed and snorts, flashes a wry smile. “Well.” She lifts her eyebrows. “Don’t I feel like the asshole.”

“An asshole trying to help, maybe.” Lumen watches her face. “Thanks.”

Deb shrugs. “The EMTs are going to want to have a look at you.” She perches on the edge of the bed. “You okay? I mean…did she…” The brittle in her voice melts. “Hurt you, in any way?”

“No.” Lumen shakes her head. “I’m fine, I’m just…” She shivers. “Physically I’m just cold, and my arms hurt.” The kittens claw their way up to the mattress. She watches them, wants to laugh, but she’s too numb. She looks in Deb’s eyes. “From holding up the gun.”

“Right.” Deb nods. “Still, though.” She shrugs and when her smile happens it’s quick, thin, tight. “Shock is a thing, it has to be ruled it out.” She moves her head, looks down. She blinks. “What is this?”

It’s Stella who climbs over Deb’s narrow knee on her way to Lumen’s warmth. “These are Will’s kittens.”

“God, I---“

Sarah yowls out a _no_.

“She was calm before, I mean.” Lumen winces, glances at their struggle. “She got…worked up, but it was not like this.”

Deb watches the men haul her up off the floor. “For some of these fuckers it’s not real until the cuffs are on.”

Stella digs at the bunched-up bedspread. Lumen lifts it for her to slip beneath. “She didn’t get what she wanted.”

“Yeah?” Deb turns toward Lumen. “What’s that?”

The kitten’s restless burrowing makes ripples. “Will.”

“Yeah.” Deb hugs herself, nods at the blankets. “So what’s the deal with the kittens?”

“He found them at the beach.” Underneath, Lumen curves her tired shaky hand around Stella’s small back. The kitten begins to purr. “I guess he’s taking them home?” Lumen’s face colors. She shakes her head, looks down. “I don’t…really know.”

“He’s a weird dude.” Deb starts to shake her head and halts, glances at Lumen’s eyes. “Sorry,” she mumbles. She glances away. Her cheeks flush. “No offense.”

“Oh God don’t.” Lumen smiles a little, shakes her head. She closes the bedspread around her shoulders. “Do not worry about it.” Esmeralda climbs onto the tent of her lap and she withdraws a hand, rubs her thumb between the kitten’s ears. “He is weird.”

Deb sighs. “Makes him good at what he does, though, right?”

“I guess so.”

“So.” Deb’s slanted smile turns soft. “You gonna check your phone, or what?”

“Oh.” Lumen feels around for the phone. “Yeah, I guess I…” Her hand closes around it. She lifts it out of the blankets. “Probably should, huh?”

She turns on her phone. Deb watches her illuminate the screen. There’s nothing, no indicator light flashing, no texts, no missed calls. Lumen shakes her head. She puts the phone down.

“Nothing?”

“Nope.”

The EMTs move into the room, occupy the former space of the officers and Sarah’s wailing; it’s still audible, animal sounds jangled up with words and fading out, the Doppler effect of the hallway kind, even though Lumen wonders at anyone else on this floor who is trying to sleep. If lookie-loos are sticking their noses out through cracks made in their doors.

Deb moves away, makes room. Lumen watches the EMTs move close to the bed, looks at their faces. She answers their questions. She allows stethoscopes, blood pressure cuffs onto her bare body.

Mild sedatives are offered. She shakes her head, murmurs _no_.

“I can take you somewhere to get some clothes.” Deb looks down, toes a filmy black pile of glittering silk. “Something different, I mean.” She lifts her face. “I’m gonna need a statement from you. I know it’s late, but…” She tosses her hair, shakes it back out of her eyes. “You’re probably not sleeping much tonight, either.”

“Not without sedatives, no.” Lumen utters a dry laugh. “Which I just declined.”

“We could probably get you some Ambien or some shit.”

“No.” Lumen shakes her head. She gathers up her hair, lets it run through her fingers. She closes her eyes to sigh. “I’m too adrenalized for that.”

“Uh…so.” Deb rocks her weight from one foot to the other. “Hannibal wants to see you.” She hooks her thumbs into her waistband. “But I locked him out of my crime scene until I could get the go-ahead from you.” She watches Lumen’s face. “I figured it might save you any potential relationship drama until tomorrow, or whenever you’re in a better space for it.”

“No.” Lumen pulls the bedspread tighter around herself. “I don’t want to see him.”

“You wanna call Dex, or…?” Deb squats, gathers up Lumen’s dress. “Or I can, or…” She places it onto the bed. “Maybe you want to be alone?” She steps back. “I mean, I don’t wanna call the shots for you or anything, but I’m pretty sure Dex will worry about you once he’s got the scoop, which…” She snorts, shakes her head. She chuckles. “That’s not gonna take long.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“These guys like to talk.”

“Let me get dressed.” Lumen reaches out, takes the dress. “I’ll figure something out as I go.” She pulls it into her lap. “I can’t deal with this room.”

“What about Will’s kittens?”

Lumen shrugs. “Take them with us?”


	24. Telemetry

Deb walks into a Walmart, comes out with a kennel.

Lumen sits in the front passenger seat. She slumps, her ass and the backs of her thighs numb, her sides aching; she watches Deb’s approach, how the orange-gold streetlight falls all around her and darkens the front of her body, buries the shape of her face in shadow.

Deb puts the kennel on the trunk. “This thing is gonna feel so deluxe after riding around in a document box all this time.” She taps at the back window glass. “Huh, kitties?”

Lumen glances in the side mirror. “I want to give my statement. I’ll go in now, once we’re done here. I’d like to get it done.” She flips down the visor. “God I look terrible.”

“Look.” Deb glances up, opens the backseat door. “No one’s keeping beauty score right now, okay? I mean,” she shrugs a shoulder and mutters, her half-grin slipping off her face, “I know that I personally could not give a shit.”

Lumen snorts. “Yeah.” She digs her purse up off the floor, pulls it into her lap. She unzips it. “I mean, I still don’t even know where I’m gonna sleep.”

Deb hauls out a battered document box. A soft lightweight tumbling happens inside, a squeak, the scratches hollowed.

“It’s not like I’m going to be okay about just…” Lumen pulls out her phone. She lights up the screen. Her mouth flattens. She rolls her eyes. “Going back to my hotel.”

“No, I wouldn’t think so.” Deb carries the document box to the trunk.

Lumen sighs. She shoves her phone in her pocket. “You want some help?”

Deb peers into the handle-holes. “What, with these little guys?” She eases the lid off the box, works her hand inside. “Nah.” She lifts Stella out. The little black kitten squirms. Deb giggles, gathers up Esmeralda. She glances at Lumen. “I think I’ve got it covered.”

“Good to know.” Lumen watches Deb place the kittens in the kennel. She smiles a little and it’s soft, fleeting.

“I don’t know what we’re gonna do with them, I mean…” Deb puts Stella inside, turns, eases Esmeralda in behind her. She closes up the kennel. Both kittens utter sleepy mewling sounds. “I guess you could take them with you, wherever you end up going.” She shrugs. “Or we could maybe leave them at the station for Agent Crawford.” She turns. “What do you think?” Her eyebrows go up. “Would Will be okay with that?”

“Well, if I knew where he was.” Lumen’s eyebrows lift, her voice sharpening. She closes her eyes and lets out a sigh and shakes her head. “I would just…ask.”

“Yeah.” Deb scowls. She pulls her phone out of her pocket. “You know what…I’m gonna make some calls?” She looks at Lumen. “I mean, he’s probably fine and just distracted out there somewhere doing his stupid man things whatever those are but it never hurts…” She squints down at the phone and dials, swings her hair aside. She puts the phone to her ear. “To be sure.”

Lumen pulls the doorhandle. The door pops open and she pushes, swings her legs over. She leans over her knees. The muscles in her back twinge, a dull pain stiff in her waist. Her knees wobble. Her head throbs. She props her elbows on her thighs, cups her face. She squeezes her eyes shut. The moment of her waking already like a dream.

Recollection happens through a white mist, a corrupted light. She grunts out a wet sigh.

 _All those years. How many years? Five of them? Ten?_ Lumen rubs her face and her forearms hurt, each movement a twinge, her muscles sulking at the remembered weight of a gun. _I can’t imagine the weight of that torch, the fortitude to bear it, or all the tricks you’d have to play on yourself to make that struggle worth it._

It takes a couple of minutes, but Deb gets someone from the station on the phone.

Whoever it is, Deb knows them well. Lumen watches her face lose its hardness, her body lean to one side, soft; her tone warm, she laughs a little even though it’s strained, doesn’t call them by their title or even by their name. Her knee bent. Her back supple. She slides a hand up the back of her neck, tosses her hair.

Lumen doesn’t listen to Deb’s words. She hears them as sound and breath, inflections without meaning; she looks instead past the streetlights and the sign-light at the purple-black night, its softness, its humid depth, a thin yellow haze coalescing around the lamps. Moths flutter in clouds. She breathes in, tastes damp flowers and salty rain.

“You okay?”

Lumen’s head turns. Deb’s face is weakened, her eyes bright and uneasy, her mouth somber. “Yeah, I’m okay.” She swallows, feels her heart churning. “I really don’t like the look on your face, though.”

“Will’s in the hospital.”

Lumen blinks. Her eyebrows shoot up. In the brief space between one action and the other, the inside of her body goes cold. Her mind conjures up gunshot wounds and shattered windshields.

“He’s got a stupid high fever.” Deb flips her hair over her shoulders, shoves her phone into her pocket. “And I guess no one’s really sure what’s causing it.”

“What…where?” Lumen stands. “Is he at the hospital here, or is he in Key Largo?”

“They’re transferring him.” Deb steps back, keeps her eyes on Lumen’s face. Her shoulders hunch. She rubs the heels of her hands against her hips. “I don’t know when, exactly.”

“I mean, is he…” Lumen hears her voice rise, edge up against shrill. “Is he conscious?”

Deb lowers her voice. She loads it down with measured breaths, keeps it soft. She studies Lumen’s face. “I don’t think so.”

For a brief moment, Lumen’s mouth moves but no words come out. She steps backward, her hands rolling up; when she looks at the night between the streetlamps it pulses. Her skin gets hot.

“What are you…” Deb sighs. “What do you wanna do?”

Lumen closes her eyes, shakes her head. “I…”

“The statement can wait.” Deb’s voice finds its way to quiet, settles there. “You wanna be there…go.”

“I don’t…” Lumen’s eyes open. “Know if I should, I mean, is it…” She starts to laugh. The wound of it jagged and raw. “The appropriate thing to do? I mean, we…” She rolls her eyes. Her mouth twitches and quirks its way into a wry, tremulous smile. “Hardly know each other.”

“Hey.” Deb shrugs. She grins. “Triple fucked if I know.” She barks out a brief laugh. “So don’t ask me.” The smile on her face softens. “But I mean if you want me to, look. I can take you over there. Or whatever.” She puts her hands in her pockets. She shrugs.

“We can wait together.”

“But what about Tweedledee and Tweedledum?” Lumen waves at the kennel. “Where are they gonna go?”

“I dunno.” Deb moves her hair with both hands. “But…we can leave them at my place for now.” She tilts her hips. “Look.” Her voice cracks. “In the morning we’ll figure it out, okay? Right now let’s get over to the hospital and see what’s going on.”

Lumen bites her lip. Nods. Her eyes burn and flicker to Deb’s and she breathes out through her nose, starts to smile. “Okay.”

* * *

  
This hospital lobby is all glass and white stone and muted blue light. The plants look stiff. The furniture is geometric. Lumen moves through the whoosh of the automatic door, shivers at a gush of cool dry air. She hugs herself. She breathes in the antiseptic smell, the underwater silence, thinks of an aquarium.

Beverly glances up. Her mouth opens. The blue light bleaches her face, makes her eyes look tired. She jumps to her feet.

“Lieutenant Debra Morgan.” Deb holds out a hand. “You know, just in case you forgot.”

“Not likely.” Beverly cracks a grin, grasps her fingers. “It hasn’t been that long and my memory’s still pretty damned good.”

Deb lets go, tosses her hair back. She folds her arms, twitches one knee. She puts her hands in her pockets. She bounces on the balls of her feet. “So.” She lifts her chin. “He here yet?”

“No.” Beverly’s eyes slide off Deb’s face. Her eyes trace the outline of Lumen approaching. “Not yet. So is it true?” Her eyes return to Deb’s face. She jerks her chin. “You’ve got our unsub in custody?”

“Yeah.” Deb nods. “It’s true, she broke into Will’s room and…”

“I was in it.” Lumen hugs herself, shivers, glances at Beverly’s face. Her smile remains small. “I guess you could say that it gave her a bit of a nasty surprise.”

“Understatement.” Beverly pivots toward Lumen. “Yeah.” Her eyebrows lift. “I bet.”

“Will had left his gun behind, so…” Lumen looks back and forth between Deb and Beverly.

“Yeah, by total accident, and thank God for that.”

“What’s going on here?” Lumen moves closer to Beverly. “Why…” She furrows her brow, shakes her head. “I mean.” Her eyes close. “Why is he…”

“Hospitalized?”

“What’s wrong?” Lumen’s eyes open. “What happened?”

“I don’t know.” Her fingers twitchy, Beverly’s hands slide up her naked forearms. She grips the skin. She shrugs. “He was okay at first, then he got all…I dunno, pale and woozy and when I touched him it was like touching a stove.” She studies Lumen’s face. “He got delirious.” She shifts her weight. “His fever was at least a hundred and four by the time I got him into the ER.” She glances at the floor, snorts. One eyebrow twitches. “Of course I’m not family.” Her eyes lift. “So no one will tell me anything.”

“Yeah.” Lumen sighs and shrugs one shoulder, her slight smile slanting. “Our healthcare laws at work, right?”

Beverly rolls her eyes. “You know it.”

“Is there anyone to call? Sibling, parent…adult child?”

“No, no, Will’s an only child.” Beverly looks Lumen over. She leans back, watches Lumen’s face. “His dad’s in nursing care somewhere and he was a single dad, so.”

Lumen’s face flushes. “Okay.”

“Anybody want anything?” Deb backs up, glances over one shoulder. “I’m gonna hit the vending machines, see if I can scare up some caffeine.”

“No, I’m good.” Lumen’s brief smile flickers and she brushes past, searches for a place to sit.

“I’m okay too.” Beverly watches Lumen wade through empty benches and low-profile upholstered chairs.

Lumen finds a place next to a big plate glass window and sits, curls into the edge of the couch. She looks through the glass, into the night.

“All right. I’ll be back.”

Lumen listens to Beverly’s footfalls, their softness, her weight muffled by the carpeting.

“So you’re the Transylvanian lady love.” Beverly’s tone is light and crisp, arid.

Lumen sighs through her nose. She looks straight ahead, runs fingers through her hair. She pulls her hair across her neck. Her cheeks get pink.

Beverly sits next to her. She chuckles a little. “It’s surprising, that’s all.”

“Yeah.” Lumen turns her head. She glances away. “I’ve gotten that a lot tonight.”

“So what’s the story?” Beverly crosses her legs. She leans back, twists her body; she rests an elbow on the back of the couch. “Presuming, of course, that you feel like telling it.”

“Maybe Will can tell it.” Lumen shows a brief smile. “When he’s awake.” She blinks, shuffles her feet. “If he wants to.”

“Yeah…no.” Beverly laughs. “I already asked. But that boy’s got a lock on his mouth.”

“Uh huh.” Lumen clasps her hands between her knees. “That doesn’t surprise me much.” She turns her head. “Maybe he’ll change his mind later.”

Beverly snorts.

Lumen’s small smile tightens, makes her voice light. “I’m not sure there’s a lot to tell.”

Beverly looks at her sidelong. “Don’t bullshit me.” She tilts her head. “Look, I know him a lot better than you do. So I know there’s a story.” Her mouth softens into a one-sided smile. “There’s always a story.”

“You’re Will’s friend.” Lumen turns, hooks her hair behind her ears. “So I’ll let him tell it.”

“He told me about the student.” Beverly watches the emergency room doors. “He remembered her paper. Even delirious, he still pulled all the pieces together and made sense out of them.”

“That is…” Lumen shakes her head. “What Will does.”

“That is definitely what Will does.”

“Will does what?” Deb sits across, pulls up the tab on a can of Coke. She looks at Lumen and lifts the can to her mouth, slurps up the foam frothing out. “Is he here yet?” She takes a drink. The corners of her mouth twitch upwards. “Did I miss his big arrival?”

“No, you didn’t miss anything.”

“You can give him a pile of just…random junk and he’ll make sense out of it,” Beverly says. “That’s what we were saying.”

“He does have a massive case of profiler brain.” Deb nods, holds the can between her knees. She glances at both of them. “Least that’s what Google says.”

Beverly makes a face. “We all know Google would never lie.”

Lumen snorts out a sharp laugh. “No.” She rubs her mouth back and forth across her palm. She closes her eyes. “No, never.”

“I suppose you want to talk to him, huh?” Beverly nods at Deb. “Get some kind of statement?”

“Oh no, no.” Deb shakes her head and puts the Coke can on an end table. She rubs up and down the tops of her thighs. “I’ll let someone else do that, I’m just…” She leans over, pats Lumen’s knee. “Supporting a friend right now.” She leans back, blows out a heavy breath. “Besides, he can just debrief Jack directly and save the rest of us the extra work.” Deb shrugs. “It’s the bureau’s case anyway.”

Beverly shrugs. She yawns, pats her mouth. “True that.”

Lumen watches past the glass, where it begins to rain. Through the late-night calm and a thick wall of hospital white noise there’s thunder; it happens far away, the sound of it distant and heavy and rumbling. The pavement darkens.

She twists her body and watches water pile up. She pulls her knees to her chest. Water drums down out of the sky. It drowns the little white landscaping rocks, slaps banana leaves, swamps painted lines; it scatters the bluish light, turns it to mist. Rain cascades off the overhang edged in silver and blue. It flickers with the faintest pulse of red.

“There’s incoming,” she half-whispers.

The ambulance rolls through the curtain of water, beads flying off the windshield wipers. The slick-black tires rock to a stop.

“Oh.” Beverly turns around. “Oh look.” She points, looks back and forth between Deb and Lumen. “There he is.” She stands, goes to the glass. “I think.”

* * *

  
The jolt of wheels hitting. Metal rattling. A door opening and the drone of warm rain, a grumble of thunder. Momentum trapped in his body.

Will’s head wobbles him out of sleep and first there’s night but just in soft black flashes, disjointed shadows, before the artificial light storms his eyes and takes over.

He squints.

 _What’s_ …?

His mouth pushes. There are voices but they’re talking to each other, using hush tones. He marshals his lungs but his tongue won’t move. The word _what_ cut loose to float around in him and become the idea of a word. A half-formed thought. All he can make is a loud breath sound, a kind of loose hiss leaking out through his parted lips.

_Am I awake now?_

The light recedes into white walls purpled with dark, yellow light falling in through filmy almost-closed curtains. Thin shadows cross-stitched by moths. A weight of mounded blankets. Too much heat.

Will rolls, sees Lumen’s pile of hair. He holds his breath. The air conditioner churns out waves of white noise. He listens for the soft snore of her, his hand seeking out her bare back and sliding down, her skin smooth, the soft shapes of vertebrae nuzzling his palm. It hurts not to breathe. The pain swells into his head and throbs into his eyes, the frantic struggle of his heart driving his blood, but the heat of her skin murmurs to the heat of his. It stills his mind.

His eyes close.

 _This isn’t what happened_. He rests his face against her head. His limp forearm rides the rise and fall of her dreaming breath. His hand, fingers spread, drifts in the small of her back. The heat of him tremors through her. He floods her hair with a big gasping breath. She does not wake. _This is what I_ wanted _to happen_.

Just his breath, that sound filling his head, moving in and out. Riding alongside hers. His blood too hot, too thick. His body holding too much weight, his eyes still closed.

“Will?”

Lumen’s voice stirs through him but his body remains hot and loose and thick, his skin wet.

It’s so much work just to think. To try and move his jaw.

\--- _it’s okay though it’s okay_

Her hand wipes oil-wet hair off his forehead. He’s on his back, her fingers cold. Her body hovers inside a long, drawn-out space. Her mouth touches down on that worn out space between his eyebrows, her breath velvety and warm, her lips cool. Wet the way a fish is wet but moving, the skin the same temperature as its home.

He sees a glimmering flash of sharkskin and caked white sand, tidal boom, too much light.

Lumen’s hand stroking and her voice, so close. The tips of her fingers just starting to thaw.

“I think you’re ill, Will.”

He finds himself inside a blood-red space just outside of language. The walls of it close, pressing upon him but gently. Words are allowed in, but they must pass through a labyrinthine system of conversion to find their way: a waiting room of sound condensing, then mood rumbles in and makes a rain of imagery. Tone into motion. Pictures of things pile up.

He can find his way through. He knows it like a song, a beat more primitive and more complex than the one throbbed out by his heart. His fingers twitch, or a thought of them. He can know in the way knowledge can be stripped down sometimes, liberated from the structures that give it form. The sound of her voice makes him yearn to use his body.

Without a deliberate form, even when words are cut free, their knowledge is energy. They have their own volition. They seek containers of their own design.

\--- _at least in my mind_

He comes out of red dark, the blood womb. Floats up, bobs inside his skin. He opens his eyes. Finds the bed, the blankets. Her body.

He finds the shape of it, the light off her pale skin, his memory of her. The way he would’ve wanted her to sleep beside him. How he wanted to watch.

He remembers the desire to be alone with what’s left when a body abandons wakefulness and carries its mind off into dreams. Her heat. All of her flesh loosened at rest. The scent of her sleeping skin, what a slowed metabolism does to the blood.

The dank mangrove smell of him still on her breath. That trace of their sex pounded down into the sheets and wrapped around them. Her lazy feet. His own breath, sliding down into slowness. The subtropical sunlight in her hair, still lingering.

What to do with a sleeping body but let it harbor you?

“But this isn’t what happened,” he murmurs, stroking the length of her back. He curls his fingers, runs nails along her skin. He keeps his mouth against her scalp. “I got a call and left you here.”

Lumen doesn’t stir, doesn’t wake. Her breath coming in and going out. Her back rising and falling. Waves.

\--- _got a call and_

* * *

  
“…you can go, really.”

He hears a beeping, a mutter in a distant hallway. Underneath that there’s breath, a quiet scuffle of feet.

“I’ll be fine.”

“Do you want me to call Dexter?”

“And wake up Harrison? For this?” Lumen’s breath sharp. “No.”

“This is hardly just a…a this, Lumen, I mean come on.” Tough woman voice he’s only heard once. “We’re talking about your life, here."

“My life is fine. And safe.”

“I don’t want to leave you here alone.”

“I’m not alone, Beverly is here too.”

Will’s eyelids stick together. He rolls his eyes back and forth, his forehead twitching. His breath struggles to throw off his shroud of sleep.

“You don’t know her.”

“Deb, I’m fine.” A wet and wavering edge comes up in Lumen’s voice. It shakes in her throat. “I’ll be fine.” She sighs. “Besides, you’re tired and there’s no real reason for you to be here.” She quiets, softens. “Go home. Sleep.”

“I feel shitty about this. I’m just saying.”

Will’s eyelids part. The overhead light needles into his eyes and he squints. At first there’s just a deep smeared red, the room light finding its way through his skin. He licks his dry lips. He lifts his lids again, glimpses pale blue ceiling tiles and recessed lighting.

“What about,” he whispers, his voice too thin for sound. He breathes out. He coughs. “My cats?”

The conversation hushes. His eyelids drift down and Lumen moves closer; her sandaled feet shuffle on the linoleum floor, her feather-weight of hand touching the edge of his blanket.

“I have them.” Deb hurries around to his other side. Her body makes a slight breeze, wafts it over his face; it carries the faint scent of sporty deodorant and Coke. “I have them, they’re at my house, Mister…Doctor…A-Agen---uh.” She clears her throat. “Mr. Graham.” He hears the wet, relieved exhale of her smile. “For now.”

Will chuckles, moves his head. “Just Will.” His head stills. His forehead creases. “Please.”

“We bought a kennel for them and left them at Deb’s place until…well, until you gave us another plan.”

Will’s eyebrows knot. His eyes flutter open. “Why?”

Deb and Lumen look at each other and a nervous flicker, a peculiar light and tautened hum, jumps from one face to the other; it makes its most pronounced shape in the set of Deb’s mouth and saves its hardest, flattest, most brittle gleam for the fluttering dark of Lumen’s eyes.

“Oh shit.” Deb’s cheeks pale. She leans back, wipes her mouth. “He doesn’t know, does he?”

Will hears Beverly’s footfalls approaching, their familiar sound and rhythm. She enters the room. “Know what?”

Lumen head lifts, takes her eyes out of Will’s sight. “He doesn’t know?”

Beverly’s voice gets louder. “He’s awake?”

“He is now,” Deb says, pushing back from his bed. “Yeah.”

“He’s been unconscious.” Beverly’s tone sharpens. “So what do you think.”

“Know what?” Will sighs. “What don’t…” His voice trails off, grunts into an effort to push himself up. “I know?”

Lumen touches his wrist, her fingertips soft.

“I’ll let you tell him.” Deb backs her way out of his space, steers herself to the door. “And I’ll also leave you alone, since that’s what you want.”

Beverly takes the blue chair next to the bed. She drops her bag beside her feet, slumps back. She rubs at her eyes.

Lumen takes her hand off Will’s wrist. She dips her head, uses those fingers to comb her hair out of her face. “I appreciate the offer, Deb, really,” she says, folding her arms. “I do.”

“Don’t hurt yourself apologizing or anything, jeez.” Deb lunges around the bed, gives Lumen a quick fierce awkward one-armed hug. “I should go, I’m tired anyway.” She glances at Beverly, favors Will with a bright but quick smile. “Looks like you’re pretty set to me.”

“Yeah, that’s what I have been saying.” Lumen chuckles. “But thanks.”

Beverly buries her face in her hands. She lets out a long, loud sigh.

“There’s a…” Lumen picks up the bed controls. “Don’t work so hard, just…” She puts the little plastic remote in his hand.

Will looks at her face.

She curls his fingers around it. Lowers her voice. “Use the buttons.”

He smiles. “I have been in a hospital before.” His voice is warm; it crackles at the edges.

Lumen’s cheeks flush. She pulls her hand away. “Of course you have.”

Beverly clears her throat.

Lumen looks up.

“You wanna tell him?” Beverly leans her head against the back of the chair, lifts an eyebrow. Her voice is flat, dry. “Or shall I do the narrative honors?”

Will closes his eyes, murmurs. “Did you catch her?”

“Yeah, actually.” Beverly chuckles. “Your…uh, Tallahassee Lassie thought she’d wait for you to come back after and long hard night of investigating her extra specially prepared crime scene and…” She shrugs, folds her arms. Her mouth flattens into a shallow smile. “I guess we don’t really know, exactly.”

Will looks at Lumen. “But you were sleeping in the room,” he half-whispers.

“So was your gun,” Beverly says.

“Did you…” He lets go of the bed controls, keeps his eyes on Lumen’s. He swallows, his voice dropping. He turns his hand palm-up, holds it out. “Have to shoot her?”

“No.” Lumen takes it, tangles her warm damp fingers up with his. “I didn’t.”

He closes his eyes. He sighs. “Good.”

“So we’re going to finish up with the scene and head back sometime tomorrow.” The chair creaks. “I guess they’ll either discharge you, or they’ll want to transfer you to someplace closer to home?”

“I don’t know,” Will murmurs. “I guess it depends on what I’ve got.”

“Yeah, I guess it does.”

Will rolls his head. He flexes his fingers, opens his eyes.

Lumen’s hand sweats into his. She keeps still, doesn’t look at him.

Beverly stands. She picks up her bag, folds her arms. She tilts her head. Her mouth quirks. “Do you want me to go?”

“Um.” Lumen tugs her fingers loose. “No.” She backs up, shakes her head. “I mean…” She glances at Will. “I don’t mind, I mean…you’re obviously friends.” Her shoulders drop and she rubs her face. “God I sound so stupid right now.” She laughs, erratic patches of pink blooming beneath her collarbones. “I don’t even know if I should be here right now.”

Will keeps his eyes on her face. “Only if you want to be.”

Beverly holds up her hands. “Look, I’ll rephrase.” She shifts her weight. She looks back and forth between them, lifts her eyebrows. She smiles a little. “Do you want to be alone?”

Will turns his head, looks at her. His mouth opens.

“Oh come on.” Beverly narrows her eyes, half-smiles. She shakes her head. “Don’t give me that look.” She shifts her bag up higher on her shoulder. “The whole his-and-hers bite marks thing gave it away.”

Will closes his mouth. His voice is dry, husky. He swallows. “I am not gonna tell you what to do, Bev.”

“Nah, I guess you’re not.” Beverly lifts her chin. She jerks it at Lumen. “Looks like she is.”

“I’m not,” Lumen’s voice come out raw and forceful. “Really.” She shakes her head, her face reddening until her blush burns darker than the remnants of her sunburn. “Look, I understand that I’ve got no…dominion here.” She flattens her lips and her head keeps shaking; she looks around for her purse, tucks hair behind her ears. “I’ve got no right, no claim to stake here, so it’s probably better that I go and you stay.”

The corners of Beverly’s mouth tighten. She breathes out through her nose and leans toward the door, eyeballs Lumen. She takes a step. “Think we could step out in the hallway for a minute?”

Will sighs. “Bev…”

“Shut up, Graham.” Beverly flips her hair back, keeps her eyes on Lumen. “You stay out of this.”

“Um.” Lumen nods. “Sure.” She finds her purse, loops it across her body. “Okay.”

Beverly shoots him a half-lidded yet pointed look. She slings her hips around, launches herself into a stride.

Lumen follows her. At the doorway, she looks back over her shoulder.

Will closes his eyes.

Beverly goes around the corner. She lowers her voice into a tight, ragged hiss. “Look, you’d better have a claim.”

“What?”

“I don’t know what you’ve got going on between you, or anything about this, but lemme tell you what I what I do know.” She changes her stance. “Will is not the kind of guy who just drops trou for any hot chickie babe who shakes her ass in his general direction. It’s just…not a thing that happens, okay?”

Lumen’s breath catches in her throat.

“So you’d better have a claim, because if you’re just…playing around, here, just having fun, or if you abandon him…”

Lumen huffs out a startled breath and it’s nervous, an almost-chuckle. “Are you, uh…” She fidgets. “Threatening to beat me up behind the dumpster after school?”

“I’m telling you that I think you’re a better person than that.”

Lumen falls silent.

“It’s not because I know you from a hole in the ground, or pretend to have any special skill at reading people, but because a person I trust made very specific choices.”

“I see.”

“Do you?”

The silence between them is long. It stretches out, creeps with other voices, muted telemetry, the nurses down the hallway with their cushioned footfalls and weary sighs levered up and out of a chair.

“I think so.” Lumen’s voice almost girlish and soft. Chastened.

“Now I’m gonna go, because he wants to be alone with you. That’s obvious to me in a way that doesn’t seem very obvious to you.”

“No,” Lumen murmurs, breathless. “I see it.”

“Good.”

Beverly rounds the doorframe, her cadence brisk.

Will opens his eyes.

“I’m gonna go.” She approaches the bed and smiles. Her eyebrows go up. “Get you anything before I do?”

“No, I don’t think so.” Will’s mouth struggles into a brief smile, his voice worn. “But thank you.”

“Call the nurse if you need anything.” Beverly moves toward the window, leans over to draw down a shade. “Don’t tough it out.”

“Yes, Mom.”

“Text me if you want me to bring you anything.”

Will chuckles, closes his eyes. “I will do that.”

“All right.”

“Rest.” She leans over, gives him a quick hug. She pats the top of his head. “I’ll see you tomorrow, kay?”

“Yeah.” Will yawns. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

Will smiles, his eyes still closed. “Perish the thought.” He laughs. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Bullshitter.”

His grin fades. He listens to Beverly walk out and Lumen murmurs an underwater goodbye, her unsteady voice drowned in waves of white noise. The emptiness of the hallway creeps back, spreads out. It settles into the open spaces. It subdues the room.  
Lumen moves into it, her feet well-placed and spaced apart, leaning; her breath is soft and unsure.

Then the doorhandle rattles in her fingers. The door closes.

Will opens his eyes. He watches her come closer; she takes her purse off her body and tosses it into Beverly’s abandoned chair. She toes off her sandals.

His eyes go to her face, his brows pulling together; his mouth goes to form the beginning of the word what and when she turns, sits on the edge of the bed, perches there---she gathers up her hair, moves it with a delicate deliberation over the opposite shoulder, lets the sheaf of it run through casual fingers---it falls apart into a heavy, slow, open-mouthed sigh. She turns her head, looks down at his face. She leans back just a little and carries her weight on the heels of her hands, on her tailbone. Keeps her eyes on his face.

Lumen’s mouth opens. Her breath backs up, tangles in her vocal cords and he just watches her face. He moves his arm. Does it even though his muscles are shaking, the joints gone soft and achy. He lifts it up off the bed. She looks away to pivot her folded thighs, their knees pressed together. Her feet lift up off the floor. She turns onto her side.

“You’re so shaky,” she whispers, stretching out.

He surrounds her with his arm. Her feet nest one behind the other. He feels her hot mouth on his chest, the push of her breath, her eyelashes tickling his skin.

Her palm grazes his cheekbone and his eyelids flutter, his breath fluttering too. His wet skin struggles to generate goosebumps but there’s too much sweat. His hairs drown.

“And hot.” She fingers his damp curls sticking, moves them off his temple.

“And sweaty.” His voice rustles, close to a grunt. “It’s good, though.” His hand follows the dip in her waist and her spine unties its trembling knots, goes languid. Her arm curls around him. “It means the fever is breaking.”

“It must’ve broken many times already.” Her voice thins out, drifts. “To make this much sweat.”

“Maybe,” he whispers.

“Your body heat is making me sleepy.”

The lazy serenity of her body says it’s true. Her breath, too. She’s heavy beside him, stilled and limp, the corner of her mouth already going damp; he wants to turn his head, to rest his mouth on her forehead, but he’s too tired. His neck weak, his eyes throb in their skull sockets, his temples and teeth-roots and jaw-joints freighted with too much pain.

“If I’m hurting you, I can go.”

“You’re not.” The words are so soft that the beeping trips them up, pierces them. He grips her hip. He breathes it. “Don’t go.”

“I’ll stay until they kick me out.”

“I’m sorry I left you alone,” he whispers. “I shouldn’t have.”

A shift, the slow tremor of it, climbs her spine. She sheds just enough of her languor to cry, her joints tightening with it, her shoulders loose and rattled with breath. Hot quiet water soaks him. He palms her shoulder, grips the way it trembles.

He thinks _shhhh_ , he thinks _don’t cry_. He thinks it with no intention of saying it and then a soft stretch of time goes by, makes his mouth wait before doing it.

“You couldn’t help it,” she’s murmuring while he’s still trapped in time. “You didn’t know or you wouldn’t have.”

 _I didn’t know_ he thinks, right before she says it. Even in the oven of his body, crackling with fever, there’s an urge to kiss her. _I took too long to think of it_. An urge to put his mouth over hers, stay her voice with lips and tongue and breath. _I’m still sorry_ , he thinks. _I can be that. I can do that much for you right now, even if I can’t do much else_.

“I’m still sorry,” he whispers.

Lumen lifts up. She steers his head, so gentle, just a touch to persuade his melted tendons, a light brush of the fingers. His eyes open and go out of focus, the lids half-lifted, the room spinning with vestibular rebellion. Her shadow comes between him and the overhead light, her breath falling, her mouth lowering until the sick waters of his face meet the emotional waters of hers: sweat and snot and tears mixing at the seam of a calm kiss.

 _I guess there’s no worry of contagion, considering_. His own voice is so clear in his mind, dry and half-lilting, mildly sardonic; he wonders if he sounds like this to other people, if this tone and inflection and detachment and containment is what they hear simmering underneath his words. The corners of his mouth twitch just enough for her break the kiss. The urge to laugh happens in his face, his chest, but it’s smothered by fever.

“I don’t think I have to worry about catching whatever you’ve got,” she whispers, her breath a fragrant flood. “I’m already too exposed.”

“No.” He’s able to cradle the back of her neck. “I don’t…” He sighs, his eyes closed. “Think so.”

“Don’t be sorry.” She feels for the space between his arm and his flank, slides herself in. Her cheek floats on the work of his lungs. Her body brims over his. Her mouth murmurs, muffled by his ocean of skin. “I’ll be okay.”

He wants to wipe her face. He wants to sleep.

 _She's been through worse_.

He listens to her breath shiver, then hiccup. It skips a few times, seizing, before it settles into slow indrawn tides. Before her body goes after it.

He follows her deep into purple-black dream.


End file.
